


Thinking Out Loud

by newbatgirl



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Explosions, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-19 15:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4750649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newbatgirl/pseuds/newbatgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story was inspired by boombangbing’s terrific fic “White Noise” which you should totally read. My story is a riff on that premise, not a sequel. (Also, no spoilers for CA:TWS or Age of Ultron but I will probably refer to Thor:TDW events in later chapters so if you have not seen the Thor sequel, be prepared to be spoiled. POV will alternate between our two leads, as with most of my fics.)</p><p>Summary: An accident in Bruce’s lab creates a unique bond between Steve and Darcy. And that’s just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [White Noise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/583338) by [boombangbing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing). 



> Notes: Not the same universe as Taking Inventory so apologies to those who are waiting for the next chapter in that story. I am working on something for that Uni but this story bumped the line, inspiration-wise.

**Chapter One**

_Stark Tower…R &D laboratories…late afternoon… _

Darcy might not be a super science genius herself – as any of her former professors would attest – but she could read super geniuses better than most people. And she knew when something was wrong with one of hers.

Oddly enough, it was the one who generally gave her the least trouble, Bruce. Unlike Jane and Tony, Bruce typically listened to her when she told him it was time for a food, rest, or Reasonable Public Standards of Grooming (aka shower) break. He also kept his notes neat so transcribing was fairly easy, and he kept his workstations clean. He was also polite so he didn’t make snarky comments about her cleavage (ahem, Tony) or get so involved in what he was doing that he needed to have everything repeated four times before he heard it (ahem, Jane).

Bruce was not her favorite – Darcy loved each of her geniuses equally, thank you, just in different ways – but since he was the easiest to manage, it stood out when he wasn’t being fully cooperative. Like today, or frankly, for the last few days. He’d been short and testy, though not in a green skin kind of way (she’d actually never witnessed that particular phenomenon in-person) and very grabby with his notes. One particular set of notes. He wouldn’t let her transcribe them or even sort them. Since Jane got that way with her important notes sometimes, Darcy didn’t find it odd, just out of character for Bruce. He must be working on something very complicated to act this way.

She watched him surreptitiously over her monitor from two workstations away. He looked tense, and more rumpled than usual. She couldn’t ask him if he was OK because she knew from experience that Dr. Bruce Banner got asked that question roughly a billion times a day. He would not appreciate it from her.

The glass doors to the lab opened and she looked up, a smile spreading across her face when she saw it was Steve.

"Hey, you’re back!” And in one piece, she added to herself.

Steve pulled the door shut behind him and made his way to her workstation. “Yeah, just got back about an hour ago.” He tried to wave to Bruce but the doctor did not look up from his work. He shot a questioning look to Darcy, who shrugged in response.

“So, can you tell me how it went?” Steve had been away on a mission for the past three days. Generally when he came back he could not discuss his missions with anyone, not even the other Avengers, and certainly not with lowly lab assistants who just happened to live in Stark Tower. Even if they were buds. It didn’t stop her from asking though. She could normally figure out the basics for herself just by watching his demeanor when he came back. From his mood now, for instance, she could assume the mission had gone well. Moreover, the fact that he was back on time, without injuries, and not stuck at SHIELD in debriefing sessions pointed to…training mission?

“You know I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that the food was lousy so…” He trailed off with a slightly pleading look that Darcy suspected no living human could resist. Not even super villains.

“Burrito run,” she said, rather than asked. Of course he wanted a burrito. Probably more than one.

He nodded. “Burrito run. You about done here?”

There was a Tex-Mex place about three blocks from the Tower that specialized in pillow-sized burritos. Steve was quickly making the place a second home. Burritos were his favorite 21st century food (though they had likely existed somewhere in the 1940s). He probably liked them because they were pretty much the only food that filled him up for more than an hour.

They visited the burrito place pretty frequently, usually with Clint and Natasha. Sometimes Bruce joined them. (Tony preferred takeout and Thor did not like burritos. He had a weird aversion to foods that were rolled up that Jane was trying to help him through). Sometimes Darcy and Steve went on their own. Not as a date, course. They were just friends. After Natasha had tried to fix him up for the third time, he had put his foot down and said he wasn’t ready to date anyone.

As for Darcy, Steve was one of several hot male hero-types and SHIELD agents she interacted with on a regular basis but had decided not to get romantically involved with lest she wreck the great gig she had fallen into. She was a twenty-something with a political science degree who had somehow lucked into a job assisting three world class super geniuses and, tangentially, a team of superheroes and gods. No way was she going to risk that. She'd just have to admire the guys from afar. It was the grown-up thing to do. She wasn't a horny college student any more. OK, she was horny but she wasn't a college student. There were greater stakes here than just her credits.

But even she had to admit, Steve made it really hard to remember the stakes. Besides being more physically perfect than a human should be, he was so darn sweet. At least she thought so. And he was surprisingly easy to talk to for someone who, chronologically speaking, was nearly four times her age.

"I can leave,” she told Steve. It was well after five, though her geniuses never kept regular business hours.

“Are Clint and Natasha back too?”

“I haven’t seen them. They were on a different mission than I was.” Darcy started to shut down her computer, and stole a glance at Bruce. He had still not looked up.

“Bruce? We’re going for burritos? You interested?” He didn’t respond and Darcy shot another confused look at Steve.

Steve put his hands on his hips in what Darcy recognized as one of his “Captain” stances. “Hey, Bruce. You alright over there?” The deeper voice must have jarred Bruce enough to get his attention.

He looked up sharply. “Wha-? Oh, hey, Steve. Sorry, I was just…uh…working on something.” 

"Yeah, we got that.” Darcy replied. “How about a break? We’re going to get some dinner. Want to come?”

Bruce shook his head absently. “No, not hungry. You done for the day, Darcy?” 

"Yeah, and it’s after six, Doc. Maybe it’s time for you to be done too.”

Bruce waved her off. “I need to finish this. Good night, Darcy. Steve.”

Darcy could argue the point but she sensed that she wasn’t going to get far with Bruce in this mood so she pulled her purse out of her desk and wiggled out of her lab coat. She took one more look at Bruce at his workstation before she gave in to the slight pressure of Steve’s hand at her back to lead her toward the door. It was probably an old-fashioned mannerism that he hadn’t seen a need to get rid of yet. Or maybe he was just hungry.

She saw that Steve had pushed the button for the Lobby while she looped the strap of her purse across her body. “I guess I don’t have time to stop at my apartment for a jacket?”

Steve responded by shrugging out of his leather jacket and draping it, with a complete lack of finesse, onto her shoulders. “Burrito run,” he repeated. Yeah, he was hungry.

Half an hour later, he was almost done with his first burrito when he gave her a funny look. She was mostly picking at hers.

“Something wrong with yours?” He asked.

“No…just… Something's off with Bruce.”

Steve swallowed and smirked. “How can you tell?”

“Hey, I know my geniuses…even if they don’t make sense to most other people. Something’s not right. He’s distracted… He’s testy…”

Steve stopped chewing abruptly and tensed up so Darcy raised her hand to calm him. “Relax, I have not seen so much as an inch of green, and even if I did, there's a room for that in the back of the lab. He’s just tense and less talkative.”

Tony had built a specially reinforced containment room at the rear of the lab in case Bruce “hulked out” while in R&D. Darcy had referred to it once as the Hulk Time Out Room and no one had laughed. Thankfully she did not have to refer to it again since it had never actually been used.

“And he’s more grabby than usual.”

Steve’s eyebrows nearly jumped into his hairline. “Grabby?”

“I mean, he’s more protective of his work notes than usual. There’s a whole bunch he won’t let me look at or sort out. It’s weird. He’s usually not that secretive.”

“Oh, it’s just that Clint used the word ‘grabby’ one time. He meant it…a different way.”

Darcy choked into her napkin in realization. "My bad, poor choice of words. I absolutely did not mean it that way. I’m not even sure Bruce remembers that I am human most days, let alone a woman.”

Steve made a ‘hmmmm’ sound while starting on his second burrito but otherwise did not comment.

“I’m still worried though. It’s usually Jane or Tony acting like this.”

“Have you asked Tony to talk to him? Maybe get him to see what he’s working on that’s got Bruce so knotted up? Out of all of us, Tony’s probably the most likely to understand it.”

“That’s true. Unless you became an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics on your last mission?”

“Not this one. Maybe the next one?”

“Too bad.” She looked at his plate. “But imagine how hungry you would be if you had… Do they even feed you at all?”

"You really don’t want to know what they feed us. I don’t understand how military food actually got worse in the last seventy years. Do you think it’s actually just the same stuff they still have in some giant warehouse?”

“I think that’s classified, soldier.” Darcy replied dryly. “Anyway, I’m going to follow your advice and ask Tony. You’ll be shocked to know that he’s been so wrapped up in the MACH whatever that he hasn’t noticed anything out of sorts with Bruce.”

“I’m stunned.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll bring him up to speed tomorrow. If I am going to keep these geniuses alive, they’re going to need to give me some help.”

"What about you?” Steve asked. He had stopped eating and looked more serious than before. Darcy had a mouthful of tortilla so all should could manage in reply was a questioning, “Hmmmm?”

"You take care of the scientists. Who takes care of you?”

"Me?”

“Yeah, you. Whose job is that?”

It was a fairly straightforward question, Darcy supposed…but something in the way he asked it and the way he looked at her when he asked it, made her stomach tighten and her body get warmer…in places that her body was not supposed to get warm around him. Not at all. She was having a hard time looking away from his eyes.

“I…um…” She mentally shook herself. Don’t be stupid. Don’t see something that isn’t there. She looked down at her plate and reached for her snark lifeline. “I’m... not distracted by thermonuclear astrophysics on a regular basis so I do a pretty good job of taking care of myself. Just like you.”

Steve looked like he was going to say something in response but the waitress showed up, noisily rattling an ice pitcher to refill their water glasses. Or rather, to refill Steve’s glass. She filled it to the brim, keeping her eyes on him the whole time, then wandered away, ignoring Darcy completely and swinging her hips.

Darcy snorted at the display. It was by far not the first time this had happened to them when they were out in restaurants. It was just so funny. Did she really think he would ask for her number after that? Steve rolled his eyes and switched their water glasses so Darcy had the full one if she wanted it.

“Sorry, I hate it when they do that.”

“No worries. I think it's funny.” Darcy said, munching happily on her burrito through her laughter. “And I think it’s the jacket. You should have let me stop and get my own. She probably thinks we’re on a date.”

“It’s not the jacket because it’s not the first time that has happened. It’s just... rude.”

Darcy shrugged. “Guess you’ll just have to figure out how to be less irresistible to waitresses… _and waiters_ – because that’s happened too - when we eat out.”

As if on cue, the waitress reappeared and placed the check on their table, sweeping her eyes over Steve as she had done before. Steve stared at the table until she was gone, then grabbed the little leather folder before Darcy could. She suspected that he used some kind of super soldier speed.

"Hey, what are you doing?” They usually split the check. Even when it just the two them.

"I got it. You get next one. Hopefully when we get a nicer server," he told her.

Darcy backed down. She supposed he had a point. Then she remembered something. “Hey, you want to get some dessert? My treat. We can go to that gelato place on Columbus?”

But he knew her too well. He glanced up from writing in what she hoped was a really stingy tip on the check and narrowed his eyes at her. “You mean the gelato place that’s next to the Apple store?”

Whoops, busted. "Just a quick stop. I need to replace my earphones.”

“What happened to your earphones?”

"Tony happened. It’s a long story involving a soldering iron… Come with me? Please? I’ll get you a double.” She had to add the ‘please’ because Steve really hated the Apple store. Not because he hated technology, mind you, he said he really hated how “calculated” they were, whatever that meant.

“Fine, but you’re buying a double with toppings. By the time I get you out of the Apple store, I’ll be hungry again.”

*****

_Stark Tower…Lobby…a short time later..._

Steve punched the elevator button for the lab floor and turned back to Darcy. “…but those things aren’t actually ironic. They’re mostly just bad luck.”

“Yeah, that’s part of what makes it a joke.” Darcy replied. She was still wearing his jacket and the sleeves were so long on her that they covered her hands. Which looked really funny when she gestured as she spoke.

Steve shook his head. He still didn’t get it. “Usually you do a better job of explaining this kind of thing to me.” That was why he came to her. That and she didn’t tease him about all the stuff he didn’t get.

“Sorry to be such a disappointment but I don’t think anyone could do a better job of explaining that song. Just know that there’s a difference between actual irony and Alanis irony. See, you had burritos and you learned something. It’s a good day.”

"I haven’t had any ice cream yet. And I have to go to the Apple Store…unless you’ve changed your mind?” Please, God.

Darcy shook her head. “No, we’re going. I just need to get my phone, I think I left it on my desk. And that’s your fault because you rushed me out of here before.”

Steve couldn’t argue with that. But he had been hungry…and anxious to get out of the Tower before anyone else slowed them down or joined them. The floor where Bruce’s lab was located was quiet when they stepped off the elevator. And darker than it should be, even at this hour. But they could see Bruce moving around in the lab through the glass walls.

Something about the quiet gave Steve the inexplicable urge to pull Darcy back into the elevator and tell her to forget about her phone. Not that she would listen to him.

She was already pushing open the door to the lab, several strides ahead of him. “Bruce? What are you…?”

Steve caught up with her in time to see Bruce pouring bright colored viscous liquid from a glass beaker into a pan something of on his table. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to touch it if the thick black lab gloves and the heavy duty tongs holding the beaker were any indication.

He looked up at Darcy and Steve through his goggles. “What are you doing here?” He shouted at them, loud enough to make Steve wince. It wasn’t ever a good sign when Bruce Banner shouted.

Darcy took a another step towards Bruce. “We came back for my pho—.” The liquid in the pan foamed, then seemed to…surge on its own. “Jesus, Bruce! What is that?”

"Stay back!” He shouted and Steve reached out to grab Darcy’s arm so he could pull her back. Whatever it was in that pan, he didn’t think they needed to be any closer to it.

JARVIS’ voice interrupted anything else he would have said. “Dr. Banner, I need to inform you that temperature above your workstation is approaching unsafe levels.”

Bruce didn’t attempt to move from his spot. Instead he turned back to Darcy and Steve and said, “Get out of here! Both of you!”

“You’re not staying! If you can’t shut this…thing off, you need to get out too!” Steve told him, then noticed that Darcy had moved towards the nearest empty workstation and stuck her hand underneath the table. Before he could figure out what she was doing, the liquid – which really wasn’t a liquid anymore, surged again, flashed, and started to spin.

“Dr. Banner, the temperature about your station is rising at a rate of twenty degrees per second…and accelerating.” JARVIS warned. 

Bruce still did not move. The was when Steve noticed something else. The buttons on Bruce’s shirt were beginning to pop. Even in the dark lab, the change in his skin color was obvious.

“Hold it together, Bruce. You can still…” Darcy started but the substance in the pan surged again, this time toward the ceiling and with an even brighter flash of light and Steve decided it was now or never. He was done reasoning with Bruce.

“No time!” He shouted at Darcy and pulled her towards the door. They almost made it. Almost.

Later Steve would not remember what he heard first before they hit the floor and he crawled over Darcy to cover her body with his – the explosion or Hulk’s roar.

End Chapter.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

_Stark Tower…Lobby…later that evening…_

Steve could not be sure how much time had passed or if he had even passed out. His head hurt so much, it was hard to concentrate. And he kept getting weird pictures in his head, as if he was dreaming but really, really fast. He had to have been dreaming because the images he saw weren’t familiar. It wasn’t like when his plane went down and he had that whole “life flashing before his eyes” thing. This was even more confusing.

Then all of a sudden, the pain was gone. And the dizziness. His super healing must have kicked in…except he still felt kind of groggy, like he was still half asleep.

Lifting his head, he realized that he was still lying on top of Darcy and he immediately shifted his weight so he wouldn’t crush her. “Darcy?” He said, bringing his hand up to face. She was unconscious but, thankfully, breathing. He started checking her for cuts or bruises before a noise behind him pulled his attention from her.

The Hulk. He looked unharmed by whatever had just blown up the lab but that didn’t mean much. He was pretty much indestructible.

The Hulk was pacing back and forth, knocking things over, at least what had not been knocked over in the blast, and growling.

Steve had spent a fair amount of time with the Hulk in battle and he knew that Stark’s “giant rage monster” description wasn’t entirely accurate. The Hulk had a fair amount control over his actions. He could tell usually tell his enemies from his teammates and he could follow direct orders.

The problem was, if he got too wound up, there wasn’t much reasoning with him. There wasn’t much anyone could do but wait for the smashing to tire him out.

Right now, he seemed in control of himself. Steve had to make sure he stayed that way long enough to get Darcy someplace safe.

“Hulk?” He said in the calmest voice he could muster. “You OK over there?”

Hulk gave a low growl. “Hulk. Defend.” he ground out. “Defend!” He pounded on his bare green chest to make his point.

“Yeah… I know, you defend us all. You’re real good at that. But right now, we don’t need any defense. I just need you to back off a bit so I can get help for Darcy. You understand?” Steve cradled Darcy’s head in his arm. “She may be hurt. Can you just…stay back for a bit. For her?” He was hoping that since Darcy spent so much time with Bruce in the lab that Hulk would know Darcy, at least a little.

The Hulk stopped pacing and stared at Darcy's prone form. Then he did something even more extraordinary… He backed himself into the containment room at the rear of the lab. He had to duck his enormous head to get through the doorway but he did it. Then he just sat there.

Steve blinked. This day was getting stranger and stranger…but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now. He pulled out his phone and pushed the button that dialed the SHIELD security desk in the lobby of the Stark Tower. An agent picked up immediately.

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“Yeah, I’m in lab number 62 Alpha. There’s been an explosion. I need a team up here ASAP. Plus medical. We have a civilian down.”

“We’re en route, Captain. Someone activated a panic alarm in that room a few minutes ago...”

Panic alarm? Then Steve remembered Darcy reaching under one of the desks before the explosion. He adjusted his hold on her so most of her torso was leaning against his legs.

 _‘Of course she knew to hit the panic button_.’ He thought. Darcy knew her way around all the labs.

_‘I was panicking…it seemed like the thing to do.’_

Steve blinked. That seemed like something Darcy would say but he had been looking at her face and her lips hadn’t moved.

She did however, shift in his arms and let out a small groan.

 _‘Ow_ , _ow, ow...head hurts…. Worse than tequila. So much worse.’_

"Tequila?” Steve said aloud. He felt like was hearing Darcy’s voice but not with his ears. It was the strangest sensation he had ever felt. It must have been his imagination.

Darcy’s eyes opened. “Who said tequila?”

“You said tequila.”

“Steve? What happened?” She asked, blinking as if she was trying to focus her eyes.

“There was an explosion. Medical is on its way. Just lie still," he told her gently. He scanned her body for injuries and began running through the injury checklist in his head. _‘Arms? Legs? Back? Neck? Head?’_

 _‘Just my head, really. I can sit up.’_ He heard in his head. OK, this time, he _really_ had heard it and she _really_ had not said it.

“How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Answering me without moving your lips. You just said your head hurt and you could sit up.”

“Because you asked me what hurt! I answered you…didn’t I?”

“I didn’t ask you. Not out loud anyway. I just thought it.”

This time Darcy did sit up, then immediately groaned when she did. _‘Ahhhhh, bad idea.’_

“Of course it was a bad idea, that’s why I told you to lie still,” Steve grumbled at her, pushing the hair out her face as she rubbed her temple. Then he froze. “You didn’t say ‘bad idea’ out loud either, did you?”

Darcy shook her head. _‘What the hell is going on?’_

_‘I have no idea. Except that you're not talking and I can still hear you.’_

_'Oh fuck, I can hear you too! You’re in my head! Why are you in my head?’_ Her hands started to shake a little.

_'You're in my head too!’_

The door to the lab burst open and eight armed SHIELD agents wearing black clothes and body armor came stomping in. They ran straight to the containment room where the Hulk was still seated and surrounded him.

 _‘Shit, the HULK!’_ Steve heard in his head. Apparently Darcy had not noticed him there before. She tried to get to her feet.

 _'What are you doing?'_ Steve asked her. _'You’re hurt.'_

_'Whatever I’ve got, you’ve got it too and you’re not lying on this lab floor!’_

Steve couldn’t figure out how to argue with that so he just helped her to her feet. The medical team arrived and he let them pull Darcy away to check her vitals while he looked through the windows of the containment room at how the tactical team was handling the Hulk. He didn’t like what he saw. And the Hulk didn’t like it either. This could go south real fast.

 _'What the Hell are they doing?’_ he thought to himself.

 _‘What’s the matter?’_ Darcy asked, startling him. Having another person having access to his thoughts was really jarring.

_‘Yeah, no kidding.’_

Steve scanned the tactical team’s uniform badges until he found the leader. “Agent Browning…over here.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell your team to tone it down. You’re aggravating him. Back off with the rifles. The more you antagonize him, the longer he stays in this form.” Steve said to the agent, using his field voice.

“Captain…sir. We have procedures for dealing with the Hulk…”

“I know what those procedures are, Agent. You are to assess the threat. The Hulk is not a threat right now but your men will turn him in one if you Don’t. Back. Off.”

“Affirmative. Sir.” Agent Browning nodded, the spoke into his comm. The agents in the containment room retreated a bit from the Hulk and lowered their weapons. Sure enough, after a minute or two, the Hulk started to shrink back down.

Steve turned back to Darcy, who was by now seated in a chair surrounded by medics who were checking her blood pressure and cleaning the small cuts on her hands. She was looking at him. _‘Why do they treat him like that?’_ She asked, without speaking.

 _‘I don’t know… Actually…I do. They’re afraid of him and they don’t understand him. That’s just how SHIELD deals with…’_ His head snapped up. _‘Darcy, don’t say anything about this. Not to them, or anyone else. Not until we know more about what’s happening to us.’_

' _Are you sure?’_

_‘I’m sure I don’t want them treating you like that.’_

He had an image flash in his mind of SHIELD agents surrounding Darcy as they just had Bruce. If her wince was any indication, he had seen it in her mind too.

_‘Darcy, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean for you to see…’_

_‘I know, you can’t help it…'_

“Miss Lewis,” one of the medics interrupted their silent conversation. “Your heart rate and blood pressure are slightly elevated. We don’t think you have a concussion but we should run the protocols…”

“Good, can we go…” Darcy tried to stand.

The medic pressed on her shoulder to sit her down again, “As I was saying, we don’t think you have a concussion but we would like to get you down to the infirmary level to run some other tests just in case.”

The other medic nodded at Steve, “You, too, Captain Rogers. This is a lab. The explosion could have exposed you both to any number of potentially harmful substances.”

“You don’t say,” Darcy muttered.

*****

_Stark Tower….Infirmary Level…later that night…_

Jane and Thor were waiting for them on the medical floor when they arrived. Thor lifted her off her feet as soon as they came through the doors.

"Lady Darcy, are you well? We were told there was an explosion.”

Darcy wanted to answer but he was holding her too tight. Sometimes Thor forgot his strength. _‘Steve, little help? Can’t breathe here.’_

“Thor! Can you please be careful with her? She was just unconscious!” Steve commanded. To Darcy it sounded a lot like the voice he’d just used to berate that agent upstairs.

Thor set her down and raised an eyebrow when Steve not-so-subtlety pulled her back towards him. “I am sorry, Steven. Jane and I were very concerned.” Thor said.

Darcy shot a look at Steve. _‘Wow, is that the voice you use in battle?’_

_‘That came out harsher than I intended.’_

_‘Well, at least we know that this hearing each other's thoughts thing has some use. In case Thor accidentally crushes my rib cage again.’_

_‘How about he just doesn’t do that? Seems simpler.’_ Darcy snorted and turned back to Jane and Thor…and realized that they had been watching while she and had their silent exchange. That must have looked odd.

_‘Why are they looking at us like that?’_

_‘Because, to them, it just looked like we had a staring contest.’_

_‘Oh, right. We should probably not do that again until we can tell people what’s going on.’_

‘ _Ya think?’_

_‘Well, you would know.’_

_‘Guess I asked for that one.’_

"Are you two OK?” Jane asked. “You look kind of…like…”

“Like the lab blew up on us? We’re fine, nothing’s broken. We’re just still a little stunned. And now these guys want to poke and prod at some more so….”

_‘Nice save.’_

“Thanks.” Crap, she said that part out loud and not just to Steve. God, this was confusing.

Jane squinted at her. “Thanks for what?”

“Thanks for…coming to check on us of course! Duh.”

“Of course we would come see you guys. I do think you should get checked out by the staff down here, though.” Jane pointed to a row of seats near the entrance to the infirmary. “Thor and I will be just over there. Take as long you need. Get _really_ checked out.”

Darcy exhaled heavily as she watched Jane and Thor walk away, then shook her head when she heard Steve doing the same. They really needed to do better than this. The medics approached them. Two separate sets of medics. They were going to get poked and prodded separately.

She turned to Steve. _‘Do you think this works when we’re not in the same room with each other?’_

 _‘I guess we’ll see.’_ For the next few minutes, Darcy barely had time for a spare thought because she was listening to the medic talk about her elevated heart rate and blood pressure. She suspected that Steve was doing the same because nothing was coming in clear from him. Maybe it didn’t work when they were in separate rooms.

A few minutes later, when the her medic was filling the fourth blood vial, Darcy groaned. _‘Motherfuckall, how much of my blood is this crazy ass going to take?’_

_'Uh, Darcy...it still works.'_

_‘Oh…sorry.’_

_‘Don’t worry about it. I was in the military. I can handle foul language, even if I don’t use it all the time. Plus I live here.’_

Darcy giggled, earning a strange look for the medic draining her of all bodily fluids. _‘That’s right. I read that we have your generation to thank for FUBAR and SNAFU. Good ones.’ ‘_

' _You’re welcome. Leave it to you to thank me for profanity.’_

_‘Hey, I already thanked you for winning the war. So, what are they doing to you?’_

_‘Taking blood. I almost hope they find something that explains this, though I don’t want to think about what SHIELD will do then. I guess it’s safe to assume that something in the blast did this to us?’_

_‘Not unless the serum made you a mind reader you’ve never mentioned it?’_

_‘Nope. This is a new one.’_

Darcy nodded at the medic who thankfully seemed to have stopped taking blood and had asked her if a Black Widow band-aid was OK. Why not, Nat should probably stop something from bleeding for a change.

_‘Speaking of the serum, why is this even affecting you? If it’s a toxin, shouldn’t you be immune to it?’_

_‘We don’t know for sure that it's a toxin. But I do think it has something to do with whatever Bruce was cooking up in that lab. We need to find out what that was.’_

_‘He sure seemed defensive about it. I told you he was acting strange. Where is he anyway?’_

_‘Let me ask…. Dammit, they’re keeping in the containment room overnight as a precaution. This is first time he’s…Hulked in the building. Like I said, they’re afraid.’_

_‘Damn, so we can’t talk to him? Not even you?’_

_'They sealed off the whole lab. If we want access, we have to go through Fury.’ ‘_

_Oh God, I cannot deal with Pirate Man tonight.’_

_‘Not going to be a problem because he almost certainly won’t deal with us either. We might as well just get some rest once they let us out of here.’_

' _God, I could use a shower.’_ All of a sudden an image of herself in a shower popped into her brain. It was gone as quickly as it appeared but…still.

“Whoa!” She said out loud, then colored when the medic looked up at her over her tablet. _‘What the hell was that?’_ She sent to Steve.

_‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, it’s just that you said shower and well…’_

_'Well, what?’_

_‘You’re…you…’_

"We'll have the results for this sometime tomorrow.” Her medic told her. “You’re free to go. Come back down tomorrow if you experience any strange symptoms.”

_‘Like being able to hear Captain America’s thoughts? Pretty sure you don’t have a pill for that.’_

“Will do.” She told the medic. _‘I’m all done in here. You?’_

_‘Yeah. I’ll be out in sec.’_

He was waiting by the infirmary entrance when she came out, looking a little guilty.

 _'Don't apologize again. I'm over it,‘_ she sent.

_'Are you sure?’_

_'Yeah, power of suggestion thing. We can’t help it. We should probably figure that it’ll happen again.’_

“Well…” Steve began, using his voice.

That was when Darcy noticed that the chairs where Jane said she would be were empty. “Hey, where are Thor and Jane? She said they’d wait.”

A medic at a nearby desk looked up. “Are you looking for Dr. Foster? She overheard some of the tactical team members talking about the damage to Dr. Banner’s lab and she said she needed to check to see if there was any damage to the neighboring labs. I believe Mr... Thor went with her. She said she would check in you tomorrow.”

Darcy frowned. _‘Typical.’_ To the medic, however, she nodded. “Sure, tomorrow.”

She turned back to Steve and handed him his jacket. She’d had it all this time, through the explosion, everything. “I don’t think I bled on it.”

Steve took her arm instead of the jacket. “I’m walking you back to your apartment.” Then he added in his head. ‘ _We need to talk.’_

_‘Until we fix this, we actually don’t.’_

_‘You know what I mean.’_

****

_Stark Tower…Darcy Lewis’ apartment…short time later…_

Steve watched as Darcy pulled off her boots the second they were through the door of her apartment. Her thoughts had been a confusing mess all the way up in the elevator and none of them came in clear.

‘ _Stop worrying about me. I’m fine.’_

His thoughts were apparently broadcasting loud and clear to her, however. He fought the urge to cringe again about the shower incident for fear that it would project the image into his thoughts again. He thought about food instead.

Darcy looked up at him as she pulled the tie out of her hair. "Oh, right. We’re going to need a raincheck on the gelato. I have ice cream in the freezer though. Help yourself.”

“What flavor?”

“Dude, do you not know me at all?”

“Chocolate brownie, then. Do I need to save you any?”

Darcy dropped on to the couch. “Nope, I’m good. You’re probably starving.”

“Now that you mention it….” Steve grabbed the carton from the freezer, grinning when he saw it was a new one and therefore full. After a quick stop at her silverware drawer and settled on the chair across from her to eat… Until an image of himself eating ice cream shirtless popped into his head. Clear as day. It disappeared quickly, replaced by…purple elephants?

‘ _Uh…whoops. Sorry about that.’_

Steve blinked. _‘I have no idea how to respond to that.’_

_‘Hot guy eating ice cream. Not that hard to figure out. Plus my jealousy that you can eat that whole thing and still look like that without a shirt.’_

_'And the elephants?’_

_‘Way to clear my head. My mom taught me that trick when I was a kid. If I wanted to stop thinking about something, she said I should think about pink elephants. I prefer purple.’_

_‘Does that work?’_

_‘You saw the elephants, right?’_

He cleared his throat. “Should I practice that?”

“It’s probably not a bad idea. We haven’t even figured out how we’re going to handle the really private stuff like showering and going to the bathroom. You’re a bud, Steve, but I don’t need you there when I’m shaving my legs.”

God help him, he tried but he couldn’t help but picture her in an old fashioned clawfoot tub with her legs hanging over the edge. He tried to clear his head using Darcy’s suggestion.

Darcy sat up at the tub image, then titled her head at what he cleared his head with. “Really? Giraffes?”

“I guess I like giraffes better.”

“ _Camouflage_ giraffes?”

Steve shrugged. “It worked.”

“Yeah, it got rid of the image of me in the tub. Seriously, what is with you and the bathtub?”

Steve sent her another flash of camouflage giraffes. “You have seen yourself in a mirror, right?”

' _Yeah, but since when do you care what I look like?’_ Darcy’s thoughts came across faint but clear enough for him to hear.

He dropped his spoon and sat up. “Since when do I care? Since when did I not care? Jeez, Darcy, I’m so damned aware of what you look like, I’m really lucky all you’re seeing right now is camo giraffes!”

He didn’t mean to raise his voice but his words sure sounded loud to him when they came out. This going back and forth between real talking and conversations in their heads was throwing him off in all kinds of ways.

Darcy stared at him. “This is getting weird.”

Steve dropped the half-empty ice cream container on the coffee table. “Yeah.”

He was still focusing on making the elephants camo as well when he saw Darcy get up and go to the small bookshelf in the room.

"I have a book on mediation in here somewhere… I found it in a bookstore in London after...well, you know. Never got to try anything in it because we had to move here so suddenly… Here it is."

“Meditation? You think that will help?”

Darcy seated herself closer to him this time, on the floor, next to the coffee table. “There might be some tips in here for clearing our heads. Ones that don’t involve zoo animals.”

“I can do something other than giraffes.” Steve offered.

She was trying to get them back to normal. Or as normal as you could get having someone else's thoughts in your head. He appreciated that.

Darcy picked up the ice cream container and handed it to him. “Let’s see what the book says.” After a moment she added, “I’m not weirded out, by the way. Just surprised.”

“Why are you surprised? You’re beautiful.”

“You’ve just never said that before. I just figured you just saw me as buddy and didn’t really notice what I look like either way. Like Bruce.”

“Well, I was thinking it. Am thinking it. I really do think of you as a woman but Clint said commenting on a woman’s appearance could get you punched in the face these days so I tend to keep my thoughts about that kind of thing to myself.” _‘When I can.’_

Darcy snorted. “Well, any comment that Clint is likely to make about a woman’s appearance will probably deserve a punch in the face. You’d be able to pull it off better.”

That made Steve feel better enough to return to his ice cream.

Darcy laid the book down. “You aren’t weirded out by me picturing you shirtless? Because if we’re being completely honest, I do that a lot.”

“No…I am flattered, though. I guess I am a little surprised, too. You always joke about how I look.”

“Only when your biceps blind food servers to my very existence. Otherwise, I think you’re awesome.” She picked up the book again. “Hey, there’s a chapter on animal imagery. Should I start with that?”

Steve’s mouth was full of ice cream so he couldn’t speak. Instead he sent her a mental picture of star spangled, red, white and blue zebra.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

End chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this earlier than I intended because the rest of my week is super busy. I hope to get another chapter up very soon. Thanks for all the great comments.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Thanks to their late night crash course in meditation, the morning was not nearly as awkward as it could have been. Darcy got through her shower and other morning activities while listening to her favorite playlist on her old iPod dock, which meant that her thoughts were focused on the song lyrics and not accidentally sending any inappropriate images Steve’s way.

Steve did a shorter workout than usual but it still meant that Darcy’s mind was filled with his rep counts while she was trying to read the morning news on her tablet. But since he didn’t complain about her music, she didn’t complain about the counting.

She did laugh, however when he got in the shower after his workout and she realized that her song lyrics from earlier were now stuck in his head.

_‘I don’t even know who these bands are, and now I know all the words to their songs?’ he sent her when he was dressed._

_‘Just be glad that I have excellent taste in music. You could be stuck in Stark’s head.’_

_‘There are a lot of reasons I’m glad not to be stuck in Stark's head. Music would be the least of it.’_

_'So now what? We go see if Bruce is out?’_

_‘Yeah, but I need to eat first. Sorry.’_

_‘No worries, I need coffee if there’s going to be science talk. Meet me in the big kitchen?’_

He beat her there and was already scrambling eggs in a bowl by the time she made her way over to the coffee maker. She didn’t want to know how many eggs it took to feed him in the morning.

_‘A lot, but there’s enough for two. Want some?’_

_'Sure.’_ Then she added out loud, “JARVIS, is Dr. Banner still in his lab?”

“No, Miss Lewis. Mr. Stark had him released early this morning. Dr. Banner is currently resting his apartments. Mr. Stark asked that he not be disturbed.”

 _‘OK, now what?’_ Steve sent her.

_‘Well, I guess we go back to your original suggestion and talk to Tony. If he was in the lab long enough to get Bruce sprung, he may have a clue about what he was working on.’_

_'Until we can talk to Bruce, I suppose that's our best shot.’_ Darcy went to fill the coffee machine. While she was waiting for it to brew, she watched him cook the eggs. _‘Steve?’_

_‘Yeah?’_

_‘Have you thought about what we’re going to do if Bruce can’t fix this?’_

Steve looked up at her, eyes wide.

_‘Guess, that would be a no.’_

Steve slid the egg pan off the burner. _‘If I had, you would know.’_

“Ha ha.” Darcy said out loud.

_‘I haven’t because we really don’t know what’s going on here. But if Bruce can’t fix it, that doesn’t mean someone else can’t, right?’_

_‘You’re probably right. Between the geniuses, the heroes and the spies, we’ll figure something out.’_

_‘Right. I am still hoping we can keep SHIELD out of this unless it’s absolutely necessary.’_

_‘Dude, you work for them.’_

_‘Doesn’t mean I trust all of them. They’ve lied to us before. There’s not much they can do to hurt me but I’d prefer that they not make you into one of their special projects.’_

_‘That makes two of us.’_ The coffee finished brewing and Darcy went to fill their mugs while Steve filled their plates. She dumped milk into hers and an obscene amount of sugar into his before handing him his mug. She eyed the mound of eggs on his plate.

 _‘Told you that you didn’t want to know.’_ He thought, smirking as he handed her a plate.

_‘Smart ass.’_

“Hey, guys.” Natasha’s voice interrupted their silent conversation and the both jumped slightly. It was probably noticeable because she paused on her way to the counter and stared at them. “Is everything OK?”

"Yeah, we’re fine. Uh…when did you get back?” Steve took his plate to the other side of the counter and settled on the stool. ‘ _Ten seconds in the room and she can already tell we’re acting weird.’_

 _‘I know, I know… We’ll do better.’_ Darcy found her own place at the counter and tried to focus on what Natasha was saying.

“I got back late last night. I heard about what happened in the lab. Are you guys OK?”

 _‘Should we---?’_ Darcy started to send but Steve cut her off.

_‘Not until we know more.’_

“We’re fine. A little jumpy, I guess. Happens when creepy stuff blows up on you. I’ve got a couple of bumps and bruises. Nothing serious.” Darcy told Natasha. _‘Other than the super soldier in my head.’_

"Any idea what caused the explosion?” Darcy wanted to answer but Steve had begun eating and apparently he wanted more seasoning on his eggs because started looking for the salt. Which meant he was thinking the word ‘salt’ over and over again. That was a little distracting. Finally she spotted the salt shaker at her end of the counter, grabbed it, and slid it toward him so she could focus on Natasha’s question.

Steve caught it as it slid towards him. _‘Thanks.’_

Darcy fought a wince when she noticed that Natasha had watched the entire exchange with interest. _‘Ooooops.’_

_‘Next time, maybe wait until I ask for the salt?’_

_‘Next time don’t say the word salt fifteen times in my head!’_

“Um, the explosion… We actually don’t know. We were going to head up the lab after breakfast and look around.”

“Have you asked Bruce?” Steve shook his head. “Haven’t had the chance. He…uh, hulked out right after. Then SHIELD put him on containment for a few hours. JARVIS said Tony got him out but sent him to rest.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes at Steve. “I know why Lewis was in Banner’s lab but what were you doing there, Cap?”

“Burrito run,” Steve answered, as if that should explain everything.

“Burrito run,” Darcy repeated, nodding at Natasha.

“Did medical check you guys out? Make sure you’re both OK?’

“Yeah…didn’t find anything odd.” Steve replied, playing with his fork. ‘Except for purple elephants and camo giraffes.’

Darcy choked on her coffee. _‘Stop it.’_

_‘It’s true!’_

Natasha shot Darcy a look. “Maybe you should ease up on the coffee, Darce. And have Foster give you the day off.”

Before Darcy could answer, Thor entered, voice booming. “Good morning, my friends.” He stopped in front of Darcy’s stool and looked ready to lift her out of it, then he seemed to become aware of Steve’s suddenly rigid posture and patted her shoulder instead. “Lady Darcy, are you much improved since last night’s troubles?”

“I’m fine, buddy. Thanks for asking.”

“And you, Steven?” “I'm fine, Thor.”

 _‘See? Much simpler.’_ Darcy heard in her head from Steve.

She rolled her eyes at him. _‘You didn’t have to glare at him. It’s not like I have a concussion or anything.’_ Darcy turned back to Thor and watch as he filled one of his special Thor-sized (non-smashable) mugs with coffee. “Where’s Jane?”

“Jane is in her laboratory. She was concerned that her work would be interrupted today so she began very early. You know she is very dedicated.” Thor said, with no small amount of pride.

Darcy stood to put her plate in the dishwasher. “Believe me, I know.” She said flatly. _‘So much for checking on me.’_

_‘Are you alright?’_

_‘Leave it, Steve. Are you almost done? We should go find Tony. There’s no telling what sleep cycle he’s on this week. He could crash at any minute.’_

Steve finished the last of his eggs and put his plate and mug in the dishwasher while Darcy filled a portable coffee mug with the last of the coffee in the pot.

“We’re gonna go check out the lab now. See you guys later.”

From the look on Natasha’s face as they left she and Steve had not exactly done a convincing job of acting normal. They were in the elevator riding up to the lab floor when he tried again. Which, honestly, she should have expected.

_‘This is about Jane, isn’t it? You want to talk about it?’_

_‘Not especially.’_

_‘You’re upset, it’s kind of hard for me not to notice.’_

_'Doesn't mean you have to do anything about it. Being in my head doesn’t make you my therapist.’_

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

 _‘Friend, Darcy, not therapist.’_ Steve projected back to her, moving into the hallway to block her way. He was fast because she ran smack into his chest with a muffled “Oooff.”

Since she had the cup of coffee in one hand, she had to grab onto something to get her balance. That something ended up being the side of his waist, which she could feel was warm and firm through the fabric of his gray henley. And she knew it was a henley because she found herself with her nose practically in the buttons, her chest smashed against his and one of his arms around her waist.

Slowly, almost tentatively, Darcy raised her head.  _‘Oh, shit.’_

The second she looked in his eyes, that thought was replaced with another. A very vivid image of the two of them standing pressed together like this, in a room that looked very much like a bedroom, wearing far fewer clothes. Darcy felt her whole body warm at the image, and for a second, she dug her fingers into his waist to stay close…until the image in her mind vanished and he stepped back, dropping his arms to his sides. Steve’s face was flushed pink and he seemed to be looking anywhere but at her.

_‘Shoot, Darcy, I--’_

_‘No, don’t…I don’t even know, I mean…I couldn’t even tell which of us came up with that one.’_

_‘Right.’_

After a moment, she got a flash of camo giraffes in a field. She smiled. And added some purple elephants next to them.

_‘We OK?’_

_‘Yeah, we should probably talk, but maybe after we talk to Tony?.’_

_'We should.'_

They heard a crash coming from Bruce’s lab and the both ran towards the noise. Steve got there first and stopped in the doorway at the sight of Tony shouting as Dum-E rolled around the trashed lab, crashing into pieces of debris. Tony was in his typical attire of a black t-shirt and jeans. His wild hair and slightly manic look suggested that he probably had not slept much the night before.

“Look, I know you want to help but you’re making things worse. You do see that, right?” Tony shouted at the robot. Dum-E whined and crashed into an upended table.

Tony saw Steve in the doorway. “No, thanks, Cap. Dum-E’s got the crashing into stuff thing down. We’re good here. Run along.”

 _‘I got this.’_ Darcy sent as she stepped around Steve and wiggled the coffee cup at Tony. 

"You, on the other hand, are an angel. Bring it here.” Tony took the coffee cup with one hand and put the other arm around Darcy’s shoulders. “You OK, kid? Nothing broken? Bruised?”

“Bruised, yes. Broken, no. We got lucky.”

“We?”

“Steve was here too. And don’t act surprised. You’ve probably seen the footage already. You know that.”

“I do know that. But who cares about him? He’s built for this stuff. You got lucky. You should have run sooner. Where am I going to find another lab rat that knows as many hangover cures as you do?”

“You really know how to make a girl feel appreciated, Tony. What are you looking for in here?” Darcy asked.

Tony took a swig from the coffee cup. “Who says I’m looking for something?”

"Don't answer a question with a question.” She nodded to Steve. “Look, we just want to know what caused the explosion. Since we were both in the middle of it. And since we couldn’t ask Bruce last night, we thought we’d take a look around ourselves.”

Steve pointed to the spot where Bruce’s workstation had been. “Dr. Banner was mixing something right here. It glowed, started to spin around and got overheated. JARVIS tried to warn him that it was getting dangerous but he didn’t stop. Any idea what that stuff was?”

“Stuff’s not a term we scientists like to throw around willy-nilly, Rogers…” Tony began, sarcasm levels already high.

Darcy interrupted. "Tony, be serious here. We were here when that whatever it was exploded. We have a right to know what it was. Is it going to kill us, turn us evil, turn us into cats? Come on.”

“Neither of you are feeling particularly green or ragey, are you?”

 _‘Not green but I’m feeling rage, that’s for sure. Why is he giving us the runaround here?’_ Steve sent Darcy.

_‘Relax… Let me try. He’s just going to antagonize you.’_

_‘He’s good at it.’_

“No, we’re not green or ragey yet but it's only been a few hours. That could change. You should still tell us what you know about what Bruce was working on. You do know something, right?”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, all I know is that I found some copies of Selvig’s notes in the debris. I don’t know for sure if that’s what he was working on but they were there. I would have asked him myself but between SHIELD treating him like a human bomb and him not sleeping at all last night, I figured it was safest if I let him get some rest before I asked him about it.”

“Eric’s notes? You mean his notes about the Tesseract?” Darcy asked.

"Selvig had a lot of notes…but yeah, some of them are about the Tesseract.”

“You are going to talk to him about this, right?” Steve pressed Tony. “When he wakes up?”

“Well, Fury is going to want to know eventually and you can bet your spangly ass that I’d rather know what happened in my building before One-Eyed Jack does.”

Darcy nodded then shot a quick look at Steve. _‘Hey, can you back off a for a minute? Let me talk to him alone?’_

_‘I’ll still know what you’re saying!’_

_‘He doesn’t know that.’_

Steve walked away and made a show of going through some of the debris on the other side of the room.

“Tony, I was going to talk to you about Bruce today anyway, even before the explosion. He’s been acting weird.”

“Weird is relative in this place. Care to narrow it down?”

“Secretive. More testy than usual. Not enough to scare me…but enough for me to notice. Have you noticed anything?”

Tony looked like he was thinking about what she said. Running over things in his mind. Then his regular Tony Stark face snapped into place, much like the faceplate of his suit. “You know, kiddo, let’s not jump to any conclusions before we talk to him, okay? You and Spangles get out of here so I can get this place cleaned up.”

Darcy frowned. Tony was shutting her out so he could deal with Bruce himself. This wasn’t going to help their situation at all. “OK, but promise me you’ll call us the minute you talk to Bruce.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Tony! I’m serious. Whatever he was working on, we were five feet from it! You can’t shut us out. Tony didn’t give so she added, “I know how to disable the power source of every bot in your lab and how to turn your all the notes on your MACH VII into Klingon. I can make your life a living Hell and you know it.”

“Fine. You drive a hard bargain, kid. I admire that.”

"And you're a pain in the ass and somehow I admire that. Go figure. Just call me, OK? I’d like a heads up if I am going to turn green and ragey.”

“I will. And might I add that I think you’d be really hot all green and ragey.”

Of course, that was the moment that Steve rejoined them. He sent Tony a look that said exactly what he thought of his blatant disregard for workplace harassment laws and turned to Darcy. “Looking for this?” He pressed something into her hand. Darcy looked down.

“My phone!” She turned over the device in her hands. The battery was low and her case was cracked but the device itself was intact. “Thank you! Where did you find it?”

"Underneath what used to be your desk.”

“Oh crap, that’s going to be fun to sort out.”

“Sir, I would like to inform you that Director Fury is on his way up to your level in the elevator. I attempted to inform you sooner but Agent Coulson overrode my attempts.”

Darcy grabbed Steve’s arm. “Well, look at the time! I better get to the other lab. Jane’s probably beside herself. And Steve, you’ve got that thing you need to do, right? See you later, Tony.”

Tony gestured at Dum-E and the bot rolled in front of Steve and Darcy, blocking their path.

“Really, Stark?” Steve said, glowering at the robot.

“If I have to do this, you two have to. And seriously, Rogers, what thing do you need to do? Find all the people in the city not exuding the right amount of patriotism?”

Tony teased. “And you, Lewis? Foster isn’t expecting anything that isn’t data or coffee for the next month or so. You’re both staying.”

 _‘Sadly, he has a point,’_ Darcy thought. When Steve shot her a look, she added. _‘About me and Jane, I mean. My fake thing for you to do involved visiting sick kids in hospitals or something like that, I swear.’_

Steve smiled and gave the hand that was on his arm an affectionate pat before she let go.

_‘Any last-minute tips on dealing with the Pirate Man?’_

_‘Don’t call him that for one thing. Keep your answers short. Don’t volunteer details until he asks for them. And look and him or Coulson. Don’t look at me.’_

_‘Don’t look at you? Why not?’_

_‘If we don’t want everyone to know we’re having conversations in our heads, we should probably stop looking like we are. And, it distracts me.’_

Before Darcy could analyze the last part of Steve’s thought, they all spotted Fury and Coulson marching down the hall toward the lab. Fury, leather clad and looking annoyed at the world. Coulson in his MIB finest, looking unimpressed by it. Fury stomped in, surveyed the damaged to the lab, then scanned Steve, Tony and Darcy from head to toe, in that order.

Darcy noted that Steve had instantly assumed one of his military stances, hands locked behind him. Shoulders squared.

“Stark, you’ve sent the footage of this incident over to headquarters, I assume.”

Tony pointed to the melted ceiling tiles above Bruce’s workstation. “You assume incorrectly. Even my cameras can’t withstand that kind of heat. I’ve got some lovely footage of the hallway, if you’re interested.”

 _‘He's lying. He told us he saw the footage. And there’s more than one camera in here.’_ Darcy sent to Steve.

_‘Of course he’s lying. Don’t worry about it. Fury expects it at this point.’_

“Care to explain to me why you had the tactical team release Dr. Banner from the containment room? On whose authority?” Fury asked Stark.

“My building, my authority. Your tactical team decided that sleep deprivation was the best way treat a guy whose defining characteristic is a huge rage issue. Where’d they learn that? Gitmo?”

“Where is Dr. Banner now?”

“Resting. He’s exhausted, confused, and still pissed about the tactical team sticking guns in his face while he was standing naked in the containment room. I’m sure he’s itching to talk to anyone from SHIELD right now. Why don’t you two head down there?”

Fury sent Tony a look that said he was both annoyed but not in a hurry to call his bluff. “Fine, Stark. We’ll do things your way. Tell us what you do know.”

“I don’t know anything. I was at dinner with the governor last night, being shaken down for a donation. Ask these two. They actually got blown up.” Tony waved his hands in Darcy and Steve’s direction.

Darcy noted that the gesture seemed casual but Tony made very brief but deliberate eye contact with each of them. She couldn’t read his mind but the look clearly said. “Don’t fuck this up.”

*****

“Captain?” Fury prompted. “What happened here?”

“I assume that you have a report from the tactical team, sir?” Steve replied, trying to concentrate on his own words and not Darcy’s very accurate interpretation of Tony’s look.

“Yes, but let’s hear your side of things.”

“Ms. Lewis and I came into the lab to retrieve something at about 1900 hours or shortly after. Dr. Banner was working in something at his station. Dr. Stark’s computer system warned that the temperature was becoming unsafe. We tried to convince Dr. Banner to leave. He didn’t. We tried to leave but we only made it to the other side of the room before the explosion.”

“When did the Hulk appear?” Fury asked.

“Dr. Banner started to transform before the explosion.”

Coulson was reading something on a tablet. “Who activated the panic alarm? The tactical team said they responded to an alarm.”

“I did.” Darcy replied, and didn’t offer anymore.

_‘Good, make them ask you what they want.’_

_‘Trying to. Also trying not to make finger puppets or something. I’m not used to standing this still. How do you do this?’_

_‘Took me almost all of basic training to figure out how. Don’t feel bad.’_ Steve fought the urge to smile at her, not only because what she said was funny but to reassure her…but he had to keep looking at Fury.

“Why did you hit the panic alarm, Miss Lewis?”

“I was panicking. That’s what the button is for. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Tony made no attempt to disguise his amusement at her answer.

Fury leaned his head forward and Steve recognized the movement as an indication that he was losing patience.“Miss Lewis, we would appreciate if you would consider the seriousness of this situation.” Fury said.

“Sir, I would appreciate that you remember that I was actually there when it happened. You weren’t. I already know how serious it is.”

_‘Darcy…’_

_‘Steve…’_

Fury raised an eyebrow at this and glanced at Steve. Steve deliberately found a spot on the wall to memorize.

“You’re correct, Miss Lewis. I’ll rephrase. What was happening that made you decide to hit the panic button?”

“JARVIS said the…thing Dr. Banner was working on was getting too hot. And then Dr. Banner started to transform. All the workstations in here have panic buttons. I hit the closest one.”

“I see, did you work with Dr. Banner in the lab yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Was he working on this while you were here?”

“No, sir.”

“So he started working on this after you left?”

“I assume so, since I wasn’t here.”

“Miss Lewis, this might go faster if you would simply give us the information in a more complete form.” Fury sighed, clearly annoyed.

“Director, I can’t read your mind. I don’t know what questions you’re going to ask me until you ask them.”

Steve had to close his eyes to stop from laughing at the look on Fury’s face. _‘You are making it real hard for me to keep a straight face here.’_

_‘This is what you get for telling me I can’t look at you or call him Pirate Man.’_

“I’ll rephrase again. What time did you leave the lab, the first time?”

“Sometime around six.”

_‘1800.’_

_‘Yeah, it’s totally not going to look suspicious if I start spouting military time.’_

_‘Good point.’_

“Why did you return?”

“I left my phone on my desk. I came back to get it.”

“Captain, why were you here at that time?”

_‘Careful, don’t make them think we were on a date. I don’t need that kind of hate from SHIELD for defiling Captain America.’_

_‘Defiling?’_

_‘Just be careful.’_

“I rode up in the elevator with Miss Lewis. We were in the middle of a conversation.” Steve replied at last.

“A conversation about what?” Fury wanted to know. Because of course he did.

“It’s not really relevant to the incident.” Steve replied, eyes still on that spot on the wall.

Coulson spoke up. “We can decide that.”

Steve shifted his gaze to Coulson. “Music, Agent. We were discussing music. Do you think that’s why Dr. Banner’s experiment exploded?”

 _‘Actually…it sounds like you’re pretty defiled already.’_ Darcy sent him.

He sent her back a camo giraffe just for the Hell of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her dip her head, just for a moment, to hide a brief smile. A few seconds later, he got five purple elephants, trunks raised, in return. _‘High five,’_ she explained.

Fury cleared his throat. “Do either of you have any idea what Dr. Banner was working on?”

“No.”

“No, sir.”

Coulson returned to his tablet. “Your blood tests show trace amounts of three unidentified substances in your blood streams.”

_‘Should we be surprised that they got our test results before we did?’ Darcy sent him._

_‘That’s rhetorical, right?’_

“Both of your blood streams, same substances,” Coulson continued. “That’s…interesting, given the difference in your relative metabolic rates.”

_‘That’s a polite way to say it. It’s also why I gave you all the ice cream last night.’_

"Is anyone doing anything to identify these substances?” Darcy asked.

“It’s being worked on.” Coulson assured her blandly.

 _‘It’s never a good sign when someone from SHIELD uses the passive voice.’_ Steve mused.

“Whatever they are, they do not appear to be communicable. None of the medics who treated you two have any anomalies. We checked. Whatever they are, they seem to be a result of the incident. Are either of you experiencing any medical issues since this explosion? Anything we should know about?” Coulson asked, his eyes shifting between them.

“No.”

“No, sir.”

“That will be all for now, Captain. Miss Lewis. But until we talk to Dr. Banner, we’d appreciate it you both stayed nearby.” Fury told them.

Not waiting for any acknowledgement of his words, he turned to Tony. “Dr. Stark, the three of us need to have a conversation about security protocols in this building. Again.”

Tony smirked. “Right, because the first five were so much fun. You know the way to the office. I could use a good pointless debate before my morning nap time.”

Coulson and Fury filed out of the lab towards Tony’s private elevator but Tony himself lingered behind a bit until they were out of the room Tony pointed one finger at Darcy, then Steve. “You two…”

 _‘Uh-oh…’_ Darcy sent him.

 _‘Easy…’_ Steve tried to reassure her.

“You two,” Tony repeated. “Are acting weird. I like it. Keep it up.” He flicked his finger his fingers towards the ceiling. “I like it a lot.”

Not waiting for a reply, he swept out of the room.

Steve turned to Darcy as he heard her exhale heavily. Before he could talk himself out of it, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. Much to his relief, she didn’t resist.

She wrapped an arm around his waist and laughed. _‘Keep it up, he says. God, I have never been so relieved to be stuck inside your head and not his,’_ she sent.

_‘That’s a compliment, right?’_

_‘Of course it is. If was stuck inside his head, I would have started drinking the moment I woke up this morning.’_

End Chapter.


	4. Chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all. Thanks for all the kudos and supportive comments on this fic. I'm sorry this is taking so long but I am pretty swamped with work and home stuff. I am also enjoying all the fabulous Steve/Darcy fics coming out this month so thanks to all the great writers for giving me something to read on my phone to take my mind off the craziness. Steve/Darcy month is awesome.
> 
> Note to all those questioning Jane's behavior, please stay with me. There's a reason for it and I will make it right. I know Jane bashing is a pet peeve of some people here and it is not being done maliciously or gratuitously. 
> 
> Also, apologies in advance for any formatting issues. I formatted this chapter twice and it still keeps adding random spaces. I hope I caught them all. If anyone knows why this is happening, let me know.

Chapter Four

_Stark Tower…Captain Rogers’ apartment…later that morning… _

 "...I’m just  asking, aren’t there rules against you handing my medical records over to any dude with an eye patch who happens by?”

Steve poured coffee  into mugs as he  tried not to listen to Darcy's end of the conversation, which was difficult because he could both hear her voice and her thoughts. Concentrating on making the coffee had helped him block out her thoughts for a while. Unfortunately, she’d been getting more and more agitated during this phone conversation with the head of the Tower’s infirmary that not hearing her was no longer an option.

 

“…what do you mean, those rules don’t apply to SHIELD? HIPAA? ACA? Neither of those? FIFA? Wait, scratch that last one. That’s about football…”

Steve placed a fist to his mouth  to stop from laughing out loud.

"...I don’t care if you call it soccer, I lived in London for almost a year and anyway you shouldn’t be giving out my test results without my permission! I could take a spelling  test in that infirmary and you should need to keep that sucker under lock and key!”

“Yeah…and blatant violations of my privacy are supposed to  good  for my blood pressure?”

“Ugh…go to Hell, Doc. Screw you and your icy cold hands.” Darcy jabbed at the screen of her phone and dropped it on the counter. She spotted the coffee and grabbed for it. “Oh, give it here.  I need alcohol or caffeine, this is closest.”

While she sipped,  he asked, “I take it the infirmary doesn’t agree with you about your medical records."

“We’re all employees of SHIELD, blah, blah, medical necessity, blah, blah. They should have at least asked me first. Or given me a heads up before I see Coulson reading my test results like a box score.” She took another sip. “Why doesn’t this annoy you?” 

Steve shrugged and took his own coffee cup over to a stool. “It’s a little late for me to claim any right to privacy over my medical information, Darcy. About seventy years too late. I may not like being poked and prodded after every  mission but it’s better than the alternatives.” 

"The alternatives?”

“Not sure how much you’ve read about me before the project but I probably wouldn' t have lived much past 25 back then. Between the war and the two dozen or so other things wrong with me..."

“Wow, I hadn’t thought of that.” She ducked her head and studied her cup. “You must think I’m a brat for complaining about this stuff.”

“No, no… of course not. I got way more in return than I gave up. You didn’t even know you were giving up your privacy. And all you got was me stuck in your head. You didn’t agree to that all.” 

His joke worked and she smiled again. “It’s not sooooo bad. And I mean not bad in a totally objective way. Not just not bad in an ‘as compared to having Tony Stark sexually harass me from within my own brain’ sort of way.”

“Thanks for clarifying.”

“And it’s been over 16 hours and we haven’t driven each other insane... Of course all we’ve really done is talk to each other and antagonize Fury and Coulson. Not exactly heavy lifting." Darcy mused.

Steve nodded. They had been really lucky that… “Dammit!” _‘Why didn't I think of this before?’_

He set down his coffee mug so abruptly, most of it spilled on to the counter. Ignoring the mess, he stood up and began pacing. ‘What the Hell are we going to do?’

“Steve, what the Hell...? What are we going to do about what?” 

She was talking, not sending her thoughts to him, which is the only reason he heard her because his own thoughts were a muddled mess.

“We’ve got to fix this, as soon as possible,” he told her. “If it means telling SHIELD…”

“Hey, slow down. We agreed not to tell them if we could avoid it… And, can you like meditate or something?  You are sending all sorts of stuff at me. It’s like warp speed up in here. It’s making me dizzy.”  Darcy put down her own cup and followed Steve to the living room,  where he was pacing. 

"Darcy, listen to me, we cannot still be connected like this if I get called away on an Avengers mission. Or any kind of mission.”

"OK, I get that you running off to avenge wouldn’t be ideal but that’s not worth freaking out about or telling SHIELD! I really need you to slow down!”

Steve shook his head, “No, you don’t understand. You would see what I see, deal with what I have to deal with out there. I couldn’t meditate or block anything for getting to you. I wouldn’t be able to do that and fight at the same time. I can barely do it now!”

“I’m not asking you to do that. We’ll  deal with it. Just please calm down and clear your  head. I can’t talk to you like this.” She pressed her fingers to her own temples and Steve felt guilty. He had no idea what he had been sending her but it was obviously too much at once.

He took a deep breath and calmed down his mind as they had both practiced the night before. When his mind was calm, Darcy’s thoughts came through.

_ ‘Oh, thank God. No more warp  speed. You remember what that is, right? We went over that at some point.’ _

_ ‘I remember what warp speed is. Space travel. Star Trek.’ _

_ ‘OK, good. And since _ _you can hear me now, let’s figure this out.’_   Darcy grabbed both of his hands in hers and pulled him towards the couch to sit down.  She did not let go when they we seated. “OK, now explain it to me…calmly, why you think me seeing what you see in a mission is so terrible. I agree, it’s not ideal. I just don’t get why it upsets you so much.”

“You’re not prepared to see this. And I’m not saying this to mean that you’re weak. You’re a civilian. You’re not supposed to see this. You didn’t ask for this.”

"I wasn’t prepared for New Mexico or London either and I was actually there for those. I handled it.I know what happened when Loki invaded and I know what you guys do when you’re not here. I’m not naive.”

“It’s different with you in my head, Darcy.”

“You know what, we’re not going to argue about this all day. Just show me.” She squeezed his hands but her face was serious. 

“What?”

“You heard me. If you don’t think I’m prepared to see what you have to see, then prepare me. Show me. Then, if you need to, show me how to handle it.”

“Darcy, I don’t think…”

“You’ve figured out how to deal with this stuff, how to lock it away, otherwise I would see it whenever I’m in your head. Show me how to do that.”

"Now?”

“Your phone could go off any minute with a mission and we don’t even know how long it's going to take Bruce to fix this. Yes, now.”

_'Why did I think I could ever win an argument with you?’ _

_'I have no idea. You  may be  a super strategist but I train with geniuses every day.’ _

Steve took a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll show you.”

“Good. And don’t hold back. No giraffes.”

"No giraffes."

It took a few seconds because, Darcy was right, he had pushed his worst battle memories to the back of his mind. Assembling those memories in a way that he could project them to Darcy took time. But he did it, even though he didn’t want to.

He sent her memories of killing Chitauri soldiers with his bare hands in the Battle of New York. Of killing and maiming enemies of SHIELD on various missions. Ambush attacks, covert ops.He sent her memories of other Avengers missions, accidents and natural disasters when they had been called in when things got beyond desperate. Often when it meant other lives that already been lost. When they had to climb over other bodies to finish the job. 

Steve studied her face. Every once and a while she would blink or close her eyes tightly so he knew she was seeing what he sent her. She was also still gripping his hands. She didn’t ask him to stop. She didn’t run away. And when she opened her eyes, she still looked at him.

The relief he felt was like a physical weight lifting off his chest.

He kept sending her memories. He sent her some memories of Commandos missions. Of losing Bucky on the train. He sent her the plane crash. 

When he noticed a tear shining on her cheek, he cleared his mind abruptly, pulling back. She tightened her grip on his hands when he tried to pull away.

“You didn’t have to stop.”

“You were crying. I've never seen you do that before.”

“It’s not a common occurrence but it's not impossible. I bend more often than I break. It’s bad, Steve, but if you can handle it, so can I.”  She leaned forward and jerked his chin towards her. “You’re an idiot, though. I would smack your stupid head if it wouldn’t break my hand.”

“What?” 

“The other reason you didn’t want me to see all that. It’s gory and awful but it wasn’t just that.”

Steve swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“You were worried that I would see you differently if I saw what you had done. What you do.”  She tilted her head and let go of his chin. "You didn’t even know you were worried about that, did you? ” 

Steve shook his head. “Not really, but I don’t think you’re wrong. I probably was.”

“Stop worrying about that. My opinion of you is pretty set, Steve Rogers. ”

Now he understood why he had felt so relieved. And he also knew why his heart was currently beating so fast. Of course, he had known that last one for a while. 

Steve reached up and wiped  the  tears from her cheek with his thumb. “So is my opinion of you…but you probably figured that out from what you just saw.”

She nodded. And didn’t pull away. Hand still in her cheek, he leaned closer until until he felt her breath on his own cheek. Her eyes flickered down to his mouth and back up to his eyes.

_Last chance to---‘ _

She cut off his thought by pressing her mouth to his. It was a fairly simple and innocent kiss…made much less so by the fact that Darcy’s mouth was sin itself. Soft, warm, and full and everything he thought it would be.

She broke the kiss but didn’t pull back. In fact she shifted closer to him in the couch and he moved his legs to make room for her. 

' _You’ve_ _thought about kissing me.’_ It wasn’t a question.

' _A lot._ _A whole lot of giraffes' worth.’_

She laughed and she was so still so close, he felt the soft puff of air from it.  She wasn’t using her voice and neither was he. For some reason it seemed like talking would just spoil things. 

_'Y ou told Natasha you weren’t interested in dating anyone.’ _

_'l told Natasha I wasn’t interested in dating anyone she could set me up with. She couldn’t set me up with you.’ _

_ Were you going to tell me at some point?’ _

_ 'I was working up to it.’ _

_'Working up to it--?’ _

_ ‘Feel free to keep mocking me. In the meantime, I’m going to kiss you again.’ _

The second kiss was not simple or innocent. He moved his hand from her cheek to tangle in her hair. She opened her mouth under his and it felt like the very air between them changed instantly. Her fingers skimmed up his chest to anchor themselves on his shoulders. The feel of her hands left a trail of goosebumps on his chest, which spread to his arms. in reality, his whole body seemed to warm at her touch. 

Darcy moaned when he stroked his tongue against hers and she gripped his shoulders harder. Steve gave up trying to shift closer to her on the couch and simply lifted her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her to pull her against his chest. It still didn’t feel close enough.

After a few moments of hungry kisses in this new position, she broke away, breathing heavily. He worried that he had done something wrong. He must have thought it because she reassured him.

_'No, it’s OK. I’m just dizzy again. I think I forgot to breathe there. You probably have some super soldiery lung capacity thing going on, right?’ _

She wasn’t wrong. _‘_ _S_ _orry,’_ he sent.

_ ‘I was actually kidding. You really do?’ _

_ ‘Yeah, I really do. I can hold my breath pretty long.’ _  Reaching up, he moved a mass of her dark curls away from her neck. _‘Catch your breath. I can keep myself amused for a while.’_ __

He dragged his mouth down the impossibly soft skin of her neck until he found a spot that made her shiver in his arms. He focused on the spot, nipping and mouthing at the delicate skin. He let his tongue circle the small mole at the base of her neck that, if he was honest, had been driving him crazing for weeks, maybe months. The noises she made in response were effectively evaporating any thoughts in his head before they could form. He was moving purely on instinct. If it didn’t involve his mouth on her skin or his hands touching her, it didn’t matter right now. 

Feeling bolder, Steve brought his hand up to her side and lightly brushed the curve of her breast. Why she sighed in reaction, he repeated the move, with more pressure. This time she shuddered in his arms and his own body tightened even more at her response.Darcy placed her palms on either side of his head and raised his face until his eyes met hers. “Damn,” she said out loud. “I am in such trouble. How am I supposed to resist you?”

“That’s rhetorical, right?” Steve asked her, for the second time that day. 

"Hang on," she said tapping his shoulder when he leaned in to kiss her again. "That wasn't entirely rhetorical. I've spent the last few months trying to convince myself that getting into a relationship with you was a bad idea. That it would make things messy. I've got to wrap my brain around this. I don't want to screw things up."

"What if it's not a bad idea?" Steve countered. "Maybe we were screwing things up but not saying anything before, by not being honest with each other."

Darcy didn't try to counter his logic. "You believe that?

"I really do."

She nodded and shrugged. " I suppose if you're going to take a huge romantic risk, you might as well take it with a guy who is physically incapable of lying to you at the moment." 

Steve smiled and moved to kiss her again and their mouths had only just touched when JARVIS’ voice filled the quiet room, causing them both to freeze in place. 

“Captain Rogers, there is someone at your apartment door.”

Steve seriously considered ignoring the AI but Darcy had already pulled back. At least she didn't look happy about it.  “Who is it, JARVIS?” He asked wearily.  

“It’s Dr. Banner, sir.”

*****

 

If JARVIS said the name of just about any other person on the planet, Darcy would have agreed with Steve that they should just ignore it…but they needed to talk to Bruce.

They both froze for a second, staring at each other. Then they started to scramble, with Darcy trying to climb off Steve’s lap while he tried to fix her hair. Which made no sense because his was just as bad.

“Tell him to wait a minute, JARVIS.” Steve called, once Darcy had gotten to her feet so he could stand as well. She reached up and rubbed at the marks on his mouth.  _ ‘Lipstick,' _ she explained. 

He was still fussing about her hair and she tried to push his hands away. _‘_ _Fix your shirt, don’t worry about my hair!’ _

_ 'Uh…it’s not your hair, it’s your neck actually. You should probably…’ _  He moved the mass of it to one side.  _ ‘…keep it on this side.’ _

_ 'Jesus Christ, you gave me a hickey?! _

_ 'Wasn’t thinking!’ _

Darcy attempted to smooth down her hair on one side as he had advised.  _ ‘At least I know that part is true. It’s not like I was thinking either. _

“Captain Rogers…” JARVIS repeated.

"I've got it, JARVIS.” He replied, walking to the door. Darcy ducked into the kitchen alcove and grabbed a washcloth from the sink. When she returned, Steve was letting Bruce into the apartment.

He looked surprised to see her. “Oh, you’re here. I guess that’s…better since you both left me messages. I guess we should talk about what happened.”

Steve took the washcloth from Darcy’s hand and gestured to the couch. “We can talk in there. Have a seat, I just need to clean this up.” Working quickly, he wiped up his spilled coffee, _‘You want to start? You know him better than I do.'_ He sent Darcy. 

_ ‘Not so sure about that anymore but I’ll start.'_ Darcy followed Bruce to the living room. He took a seat in one of the armchairs so she sat down opposite him. It took her a second to clear away the very vivid memories of her on Steve on this couch from a few minutes earlier.  She was trying to figure out what to say but Bruce spoke first.

“Are you OK, Darcy? I mean, you didn’t get hurt, did you?” He asked, looking at his hands instead of at her.

“A couple of bumps and  bruises.” Darcy replied, arching an eyebrow when Steve took a seat next to her on the couch.  _‘Don’t distract me.’ _ She sent and got a giraffe in reply. 

“The explosion knocked Darcy out for a few minutes. Do you remember that?” Steve asked.

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t always remember what happens after the Other Guy shows up. ”

“What do you remember?” Darcy asked. 

"I remember you guys coming back… I remember telling you to leave…and that’s about it.” Bruce replied, still not looking at either of them.

“Stark found some of Selvig's notes in the debris. He seems to think what you were working in had something to do with the Tesseract.  Is that true? ” Steve asked.

Bruce started at his hands for a long moment before answering. “I was using Selvig's notes to test something that I hoped…would improve the performance of the arc reactor. I’m very sorry this all happened.”

“Sorry about the explosion or sorry that Steve and I were there for it?” Darcy asked bluntly.

_ 'What? Darcy, what are you doing?    
_

Bruce finally looked up. “Excuse me?”

“Both?  Neither? ” Darcy pinned him with her gaze. “Bruce, I may not have all the degrees that you, Jane and Tony have but I’m not an idiot. You’ve never treated me like one before, please don’t do it now." 

“You weren’t supposed to be there!”  Bruce stood up abruptly, which meant Steve stood up too and immediately put himself between Bruce and Darcy.

_ ‘Easy, Darcy…’ _

_'He’s fine. He’s not angry. He’s… feeling guilty.’ _

_'You wil ling to bet the walls on that?’  _

“What are you trying to say to me?”  Bruce asked. He had circled the  armchair and was now gripping the back of it.

“Fact: you wouldn’t work on anything involving the arc reactor without Tony because you’d never hear the end of it. Fact: You’ve been grabby and secretive with your notes for weeks now. If they were about the reactor, why would you  hide  them  from us. From me? I’ve read or transcribed everything new you guys have generated about the reactor since the day I started.”

“Darcy, this isn’t that simple…” Bruce began. 

“Fact: when what  you  were working on, whatever it was, started going nuts, you wanted us to leave but you stayed. Like you were planning to stay all along.”

Steve turned back to  Bruce. “She’s right. That’s how I remember it, too. You weren’t going to leave at all? What the Hell were you doing?” 

“I’ve…  I’ve explained what I was doing. There’s nothing else to say.”  He moved to leave. 

_ ‘Dammit. Now what?’ _

_ 'We have to tell him. He may tell us the truth if he knows. And he’s not likely to tell SHIELD. He trusts them even less than we do! ’ _

_ 'He’s lying to us now!’ _

_ 'What have we got to lose?’ _

“Bruce, it’s not just bumps and bruises.” She called out. He stopped.  “Whatever you did, whatever you were working on…It did something. You need to fix it.”

Bruce turned, looking guilty again. His shoulders sagged and he rubbed his eyes. “Did something? To which one of you?” he asked.

“Both of us,” Steve replied. At Bruce’s confused look he added, “Yeah, whatever you did, it doesn’t seem all that deterred by the serum. We haven’t told SHIELD. As you can probably imagine, we’d prefer not to.”

“Both of you what? What’s going on?” 

“We can…uh…read each other’s thoughts.” Darcy told him. But her eyes were on Steve. 

Bruce looked back and forth between them and shook his head. “No, that’s not possible.”

“You of all people want to argue with us, with me, about what’s possible? In this building?” Steve shot back. “Do you want us to prove it?”  Darcy raised her eyebrows at this. How were they supposed to do that?

Thankfully Bruce shook his head, “No, I believe you. Um…do you get everything, just surface thoughts, what?”

“Surface thoughts, mostly. And images. And, if we put some effort in, memories.” Steve replied, looking at Darcy. And damned if as soon as his eyes hit hers, her mind conjured up a memory them on the couch a few minutes earlier. OK…not a memory, because after a split second, their shirts were off and Steve was pressing her down into the cushions. 

_'Not now!’_  She sent him urgently, fighting to keep her face neutral. The image faded, though the warmth it had created in her body didn’t.

_'Who are you telling, me or yourself? Because I think this one is on you!’ _

_'I may have started it but you took our shirts off.’ _

_ 'Alright, you may have a point…’  _

“Are you guys having a conversation in your heads right now?” Bruce asked, cutting off Steve’s thought.

“Yes,” they replied in unison, then winced. They should have worked out who was going to answer that. 

_'W e suck at being subtle about this.’ _ Darcy sent.

"How does that even work?” Bruce asked, stepping closer. “You don’t need to talk…at all?”

“Not since the explosion. It all just happens in our heads.”

“But how?” Bruce’s innate curiosity was obviously winning over his guilt. “What does it feel like?”

Darcy titled her head to Steve. _'_ _ You want to describe it?’ _ He nodded. 

“It’s like…I’m hearing her talk, just not using my ears. Her voice just forms in my head.” He said. “That’s the best way I can figure to describe it.”

Darcy nodded. “That’s how it is for me, too.”

“But do you have to be looking at each other? In the same room?”

“No, we’ve been on different floors in the Tower and it still works. Neither of us have left the building since last night so we really don’t know if there’s a distance limit on it.” Darcy explained. 

Bruce looked back and forth between them. “You’re looking at each other now. But you don’t have to do that in order for it to work?”

"Habit. When you talk to someone, you make eye contact. It still  feels  like we're talking out loud, even though it’s happening in our heads.”

Bruce had his hand on his chin and a look on his face that Darcy knew to be his ‘puzzle solving’ expression. “So, can you block ---?”

“Bruce, look, we appreciate how fascinating this is to you right now but we need you to fix it, not study it…unless of course that leads to fixing it. Can we focus on that for a second?” She asked impatiently.

“Right…sorry. The problem is, I don’t know how. What happened to you was an accident. Meaning I don’t know how to repeat it. I can’t just cause another explosion…” He nodded at Steve, “You might withstand it but Darcy…” 

“There I go not being indestructible again,” Darcy drawled.

“Darcy, that’s not what I meant,” Bruce protested but she waved him off. “I just meant, it’s not that simple. It would take some time to figure out what’s causing this.” 

“We haven’t told SHIELD the specifics but their tests found three unidentified substances in our blood streams. I had the lab email me my test results. If I forward them to you, do you think you can try to figure out what they are?” 

“I can try. It’s the least I can do, actually. Is SHIELD working on it too?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah, so…no pressure but we’d really prefer if you beat them to the punch on this. Look, whatever is you were really working on, I don’t care, as long as we can figure out how to, you know, disconnect us.” Darcy gestured between herself and Steve.  _ ‘No offense, _ _’_ she added for Steve’s benefit. 

Steve nodded. _‘_ _None taken. This isn’t exactly how I pictured our first date going either.’ _

_ 'Hold that thought. No seriously, we are so getting back you picturing that for me after he leaves.’ _

_ ‘I can do that.’ _

Bruce cleared his throat. Probably to get their attention because they were looking at each other instead of at him again. “Understood. And I will do my best. Have you guys told anyone else about this?” 

“No, we wanted to talk to you first. And we were worried about what would happens if SHIELD found out. You know better than anyone how they treat things they don’t understand.” Steve replied.

Bruce nodded. “You’re right to be concerned about that. Send me the file, Darcy. I’ll do what I can. I am sorry about this. I’d better go check in with Coulson. I swear there’s a whole new set of forms to fill out every time the Other Guy shows up.”

Darcy went to the table to retrieve her phone so she could email him.

Steve slid his hands into his pockets and lifted his shoulders. “For what it’s worth, the Other Guy was pretty cooperative this time around. I asked him to back off so I could get help and he did. Went into the containment room himself.”

“He did?” Bruce looked surprised at this. “Huh.” Shaking his head, he went to door, “I’ll check in with you guys later. Uh…good luck.” He pulled the apartment door behind him as he left. 

Darcy shook her head and hastily forwarded her test results to Bruce’s secure account, then set her phone on the coffee table. When she looked up, Steve was staring at the door. _‘_ _ So..what  do you think?’ _  she sent.

_ ‘I think you’re right. He’s hiding something. And whatever it is, it must be pretty personal for him not to tell us even after we told him what’s going on.’ _

_ ‘Yeah. Now what? We wait?’ _

_ ‘Not sure we have a choice. Even with all this, I think he will try to find some answers for us. He may be hiding something but he’s still a friend. _ _’_ Steve turned back to her and moved her hair from her neck, exposing the mark he had left.   ' _I suppose I should apologize for this.’ _

_ ‘Not if you don’t mean it, and you don’t mean it.’ _

He laughed and brought his other hand cup her cheek. "Very true. I mean this, though.” He leaned forward and kissed her. Darcy responded immediately, opening her mouth under his, and pressing herself against his chest. He groaned against her lips, and dropped his hands to around her waist to pull her even closer. His kisses were more confident this  time, less tentative. Darcy could easily see herself getting light-headed again, except she could not bring herself to pull her mouth from his. He was warm, firm under her hands and he tasted like coffee and sex. 

Steve broke the kiss, just then, smirking at her.  _ ‘Coffee and sex, huh?’ _

Darcy was unrepentant. She nodded and kissed his chin.  _‘I can live with that description_ _,’_ He sent in reply. 

_ 'So, what about this first date you were thinking about? Is this what you pictured?’ _ She gestured to their current position.

_ ‘Well, I hoped it would end like this…but the beginning involved taking you out to dinner. Someplace nice, where the servers would treat you like you should be treated…’ _

Darcy snorted and ran her hands up his biceps. _‘Were you planning on covering these in burlap or something? Because that’s the only way that’s going to happen.' _

_ ‘It’ll happen. We’ll go someplace really nice and I’ll make sure they treat you like a queen.’ _

Darcy couldn’t deny it, she felt his words down to her toes. That sounded kind of wonderful. It would be nice to be waited on for a change. Instead of having to bully super geniuses into eating lunch.  _  'That sounds…really nice.’ _

Steve was brushing light kisses against her cheek.  _‘So you’ll go?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know, I haven’t officially been asked yet. And no cheating, just because you can read a girl’s mind doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask nicely._ _’_ It was a good thing they  could  read each other’s minds, though, because she was laughing too much to get that thought out in words.

Steve pulled back and smirked at her. “Fine,” he said, exaggerating the syllable. “Darcy, would you go on a date with me? And no cheating for you either. You have to answer out loud too.”

“I should really tell you that ‘I’ll think about it’ but that’s too ridiculous, even for me. Yes, Steve. I will go on a date with you…when we get this fixed.”

“Hey, we don’t even know when that will be! Why do we have to wait?”

“Because….a first date has to have some mystery. Being able to read each other’s thoughts kind of kills that.”

“I suppose that makes sense. I don’t like it but I see your point. If that’s what you want, we can wait until this is fixed.”

“That’s what I want. Especially since  - spoiler alert – we both know I’m letting you kiss me at the end of this date no matter what happens.”

Steve laughed and moved to kiss her again…but stopped when her phone began to buzz from the table. Steve glared at it.  _‘That thing’s been nothing but trouble since last night.’ _

Darcy stopped herself from pointing out that it wasn't the phone’s fault that they lived in a high tech madhouse. Instead she just twisted in his arms to reach the device and swiped her thumb across the screen.

"DARCY! THE DATA SPREADSHEETS AREN’T LOADING!!!! THE COMPUTER SAYS THE FILES ARE CORRUPTED!!!! I CAN’T LOSE THAT DATA!! HELP!!!” 

_ 'Jane?'_ Steve sent. 

_ ‘The mysteries of cloud storage back-up continue to elude her.’ _

_ ‘Sorry?’ _

_ ‘I’ll explain later. I better go get these files for her.’ _

_ ‘You really don’t get a day off after being blown up?’  _

_ 'Do you?' _

_ ‘Point taken.’ _

Darcy gave him a light kiss on his lips. ' _Let me go fix this or she’ll text me all day.’ _

Steve  tightened his hold on her  and kissed her harder. When she pulled back and shot him an amused look, he added,  _ ‘Told you, a whole lot of giraffe’s worth.’ _

Because he was Steve, he walked her to his door. When he opened it for her, they both started slightly when they found Tony in the doorway, hand on the access panel.

“Captain Rogers, Sir is at your apartment door.” JARVIS  told them, needlessly.

“Thanks,  JARVIS. I had sussed that one out.”

Tony pointed at them. “You two…have some explaining to do.”

Darcy sighed.  _‘High tech madhouse doesn’t even begin to describe this place.’ _

 

End Chapter.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is slow going. My job is seriously kicking my butt. I really want to put these out faster.

**Chapter Five**

_Stark Tower…Captain Rogers’ apartment…_

“You two…have some explaining to do.” Tony told them.

“Whatever it is, Steve will explain it. I have to go solve Jane’s data crisis. See you later!”

 _‘Leaving me to deal with him by myself?!’_ Steve sent after he while he surreptitiously wiped his lips in case there were any traces of her lipstick.

_‘I’ll make it up to you later.’_

Tony watched Darcy disappear down the hallway before turning back to Steve. “I promised Lewis I would call her if I heard from Banner. The implication was that she would do the same. Yet JARVIS informs me that he just left and my phone did not ring. What gives?”

Steve gestured for Tony to enter and closed the door behind him.

 _He’s pissed because I didn’t call him, isn’t he?’_ Darcy sent him.

_Yeah, I’ll deal with it.’_

“Dr. Banner came to us, well, he came here to see if we were both OK. I guess he was feeling guilty. There wasn’t time to call you.”

Tony frowned at him but didn’t comment. Steve jerked his thumb towards the door. “He said he was going to find Coulson. I’m sure you could—“

"Later,” Tony dismissed. “What did he tell you?”

“That he was working on some improvements in the arc reactor.” Tony didn’t react so Steve added, “Darcy pointed out that he wouldn’t do that without you being involved since the reactor is your thing…but he didn’t change his story. So…is it true? Is that what he was working on?”

Instead of answering the question, Tony turned to the television. “JARVIS, bring up the lab footage. The first times-tamp I marked earlier.”

“Yes, sir.”

The television powered up and after a few seconds of speeded footage, the picture slowed to a bird’s eye view Bruce’s lab.

"Your cameras seemed to have withstood the heat just fine,” Steve could not resist ribbing Tony on his obvious lie from earlier.

“A half truth, actually. Cameras survived. Mics not so much. No sound after the explosion. I’ll fix that in the next batch. SHIELD doesn’t need to know that.”

The view they had of Bruce’s workstation from this angle was not ideal. Bruce had his back to the camera, so then mostly got a view of the back of his white lab coat instead of what was going on at the station.

“Can you see enough to figure out what he was doing?” Steve asked, even though he was fairly certain he already knew the answer.

“Enough to know it has nothing to do with the reactor. JARVIS, next time mark.”

The video sped up for a moment and landed just a shortly before the explosion. Steve saw himself on the screen trying to reason with Bruce while Darcy ran to hit the panic button. Just as Darcy had recalled, Bruce didn’t move. Tony let the video play until the explosion, which happened a few seconds after Bruce transformed. In the corner of the frame, Steve saw himself land on the floor just shy of the door, then crawl over Darcy’s prone form just before the explosion.

“Stop the video, JARVIS.” Tony said turning to Steve. “He knew it was going to blow. You can see it in the video. He never planned to leave. He just didn’t expect you and Lewis to get caught up in it.”

Steve nodded. “Darcy figured that part out. Asked him about it a few minutes ago. He didn’t give.”

“She did?” Tony looked surprised and impressed. “That kid’s way too smart to be babysitting Foster. She and I need to have a chat about that… In the meantime…of course he didn’t give. This is personal. We just need to figure out what it is.”

Steve tried to ignore Tony’s comment about Darcy, partly because he didn’t think it was really his business and also because he knew thinking about it might distract Darcy, and given all the snippets of data he was getting from her, she needed to concentrate on what she was doing. Then, as if on queue, he heard her voice in his head. 

_'You guys are talking about me. I can tell by what you’re thinking. What’s up?’_

_‘I was just telling Tony what you said to Bruce. He…uh, agrees with you.’_

_‘Hmmm, I guess it’s not always a bad thing to think like Tony.’_

_‘Everything OK up there?’_

_‘Yeah, she made a right mess of things but I have backups. Shouldn’t take too long to fix.’_

“Cap? You still with me?” Tony asked and Steve blinked to bring himself back to the conversation.

“Sorry, I was just…thinking. How do we do that? Figure out what would make Bruce do this?”

Tony squinted at him. “I’m not the only one who told Fury a half-truth, am I?”

Crap. “What makes you say that?” Steve asked. Misdirection. Stark could probably run circles around him when it came to lying, but it was worth a shot.

“It’s damn good thing the Nazis never got their hands on you. You’re a lousy liar. As for Bruce, we took a chance on him, I took a chance on him by asking him to stay here…” Tony tapped his chin with one finger And trailed off.

"And...? What are you saying Tony?”

“I’m saying if we can’t trust him, he’s got to be out.”

“Now wait a minute. You don’t get to decide that by yourself,” Steve countered. It was Tony’s building but he was the team leader and the others deserved a say too.

“I know that…even if you don’t think I do, I do know that. If it comes to it, we put it to a vote. Simple as that.”

Steve sighed. Ultimately, he knew Tony was right. He just hoped it didn’t come to that. “You have a habit of calling things simple when they’re really not.”

Tony shrugged. “Making things more complicated than they need to be hasn’t really been a magic bullet around here either.”

“He’s our friend, Tony.”

“I know that, you and Lewis know that. Someone needs to remind him.”

*****

An hour or so later, Darcy Lewis stepped off one of the Tower elevators heading toward her apartment, feeling more than a little cranky. It had taken the better part of an hour to download the backup data files and after she had restored them, she hadn’t gotten so much as a nod of acknowledgment from Jane, let alone a thank you. Jane has already been buried in her latest observations. Darcy wasn't even sure she knew there were other humans in the lab with her.

‘You OK?’ Steve sent her.

‘Not really, but I’m done. And I’m not answering her texts for the rest of the day. I give you permission to confiscate my phone if I do.’

‘Really?’

‘No, probably not, but it sounded good.’

‘It did. I’m on my way to your place.’

Before she could respond, she saw a dark shape drop down from the ceiling out of the corner of her eye. Without stopping to think, Darcy screamed and whirled, thrusting out her leg as Natasha had taught her. She collided with flesh and heard an exclamation of pain and then a thud of a body hitting the floor.

“Jesus Fucking Christ! What the actual fuck, Lewis!?” Clint muttered from the floor.

“Clint?” Darcy sputtered, looking down. Clint groaned in response and curled into a C shape on the floor. Darcy winced. Apparently Natasha had instructed her a little too well on how to find an attacker’s…weak spot.

“Darcy! Are you ok?!!" Steve shouted, skidding down the hall towards them. He slid to a stop in front of Clint’s form. He looked down at Clint then at Darcy. _‘What the Hell happened?’_ He sent.

_‘He jumped out of nowhere at me!’_

Steve cocked his head at her. _‘So you killed him?!!!’_

“I didn’t kill him,” Darcy replied out loud. “I kicked him!”

Clint groaned again. “Fuck, Rogers! What are you just standing there for? Gimme a hand or something! Steve bent down and easily lifted Clint to his feet. Clint remained doubled over, clutching his groin.

Steve shot a look at Darcy. ‘Really?’

_‘Natasha taught me.’_

_‘Well, that explains that.’_

To Clint he said, “What the Hell were you doing, Barton?”

“Coming to check up on her. Pep asked me to see if she was alright. Didn’t think she’d attack me!”

“I didn’t attack you. You snuck up on me and scared the shit out of me!”

“Ugh, so you kicked me in the balls?” Clint growled. “Jesus, Darce… I thought we were friends.”

“That’s what Nat taught me to do if someone sneaks up on me…”

“I didn’t sneak up on you. I came out of the ceiling like I always do!”

“Today’s not the day to come of out the ceiling, man.” Steve said calmly.

Clint scowled. “Gee, thanks for the advice, Cap.” He exhaled sharply and straightened, still moving stiffly. "How did you get here so fast anyway?”

"I was..uh…just down the hall. I heard Darcy scream.” _‘And I saw him jump down from the ceiling. You pictured it in your head.’_ He added to Darcy.

_‘I did? That’s actually cool.’_

Clint caught Darcy’s eyes and exhaled sharply. “Lucky shot, kid.”

“Should I be concerned that she took you down with one kick?” Steve asked, smirking slightly.

“My suit has a cup, asshole. Didn’t think I needed one to go see the intern.”

“You miscalculated,” Steve told him, though his eyes were on Darcy. She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“You..uh…want to come in for an ice pack or something?” Darcy asked, jerking her thumb towards the door to her apartment.

“No, Lewis, I do not need an ice pack. And quit trying not to laugh. It’s worse than just laughing.”

At his words, Darcy snorted, then laughed full out. Steve turned his head to hide his grin.

When she had composed herself, Clint narrowed his eyes at her. “Feel better?”

“Much, thanks.”

“Whatever. Pep says to tell you that there’s a team dinner tonight. Seven.”

“That’s not until next week,” Steve countered. Team dinners were twice a month, unless alien invasions affected the schedule.

“She moved it up. Maybe because you two got blown up. Maybe because Tony’s in a mood. I don’t know. But you both know what happens if you don’t go.”

“Yeah.” Steve and Darcy replied in unison.

Darcy shot him a look. _‘We still need to work out the whole answering thing.’_

 _‘It would be great if we could communicate in some way beforehand.’_ Steve sent her.

_‘_ _Sarcasm is my thing. Not yours.’_

_‘You’re a bad influence.’_

Belatedly, Darcy realized that Clint was staring at them. Staring at them having their silent conversation. She cleared her throat. “So…seven o’clock. I’ll be there.”

“Me too.”

Clint narrowed his eyes at them. “Nat said you two were acting weird.”

“Weird how?” Darcy answered. “Like something blew up on us?”

Clint shook his head and looked from one to the other. “Weird as in…distracted. Both of you.”

“Well, I can’t speak for Cap but I’m a bit distracted looking out for other stuff that might explode on me around here. That might be why sneaking up on my wasn’t such a great idea.”

Clint made a noise of discomfort and nodded, apparently ready to drop the subject.

 _'You're way better at this misdirection thing than I am.’_ Steve sent her.

_‘Impressed?’_

_‘With you? Always.’_

“Seven o'clock,” Clint repeated, and began making his way, slowly, towards the elevators. Which he rarely used.

“You sure about that ice pack?” Darcy called after him.

Clint flipped her the bird over his shoulder, which made her giggle. She placed her hand on the access scanner for her room to open the door.

Before she could even gesture to Steve to go ahead, he had pulled her inside and closed the door behind her. Steve wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. That was when she noticed that he had his leather jacket on. He must have hung it up to air out because it no longer smelled of smoke. it just smelled as it should, like leather and him.

 _‘It scared the hell out of me when I heard you scream like that,’_ he sent.

 _‘Didn’t mean to.’_ She hugged him back and sighed when she felt him nuzzle her neck before pulling back.

_‘Helluva shot, though. I knew you could handle most situations but it was good to see it for myself.’_

_‘Clint might disagree with that assessment right about now.’_

_‘He’ll get over it.’_ Steve pulled back and pressed his hand against her cheek. _‘Please tell me you’re as anxious to get out of this building for a few hours as I am.’_

_'Thought you'd never ask. Let's blow this high tech madhouse!’_

Steve kissed her cheek quickly and began to tug her towards the door but she resisted.“Hold up, buddy. This time you’re waiting long enough for me to grab a jacket!”

*****

_Later that afternoon…Central Park…_

Steve was so relieved to get out of the Tower that he didn’t put up any resistance when she suggested a trip to the Apple Store to finally get her earphones. While she was picking out new earphones, he spotted a case to replace the one that had been cracked in the explosion. Wordlessly he handed it to the store employee ringing up her earphones and handed over the money to cover both items. Darcy opened her mouth to protest but stopped when she realized he’d found a purple camouflage phone case.

_‘Can’t really argue with that.’_

_‘Not even you can argue with that.’_

_‘Ha ha. But Tony gave me money to buy new earphones.’_ She waved the excessive amount of bills at him.

Steve took the bag from the Apple Store “genius” and steered Darcy toward the store entrance. _‘We’ll use it to buy lunch. I’m starved.’_

That was how they end up on picnic tables near the edge of Central Park, having stopped to pick up a small fortune’s worth of sandwiches and drinks from one of the food trucks lining the streets adjacent to the park. They ate in silence, both actual and telepathic, for a few minutes, simply enjoying the fresh air and the relative quiet of this part of the park given that it was mid afternoon on a weekday.

Finally, Steve broke the silence. _'Can I ask you something?’_

Darcy smiled at him over the rim of her lemonade. _‘Pretty sure I can’t stop you. I’m not even sure I can stop you from seeing the answer in my head even if I don’t want to send it.’_

_‘Can you tell me what’s bothering you about Dr. Foster? You seemed kind of upset about her a couple of times since last night.’_

The smile on Darcy’s face faded and she looked down at the table. "It's kind of complicated... Jane's my boss. She's the reason I'm here. I'm well aware that I wouldn't be living in Stark Tower of all places if I hadn't been out in the middle of the desert with Jane and Eric trying to get six lousy credits..."

"But---?" Steve prompted. For whatever reason Darcy had decided to explain this out loud, so he decided to follow her lead.

"I sort of thought we were friends, too. That she cared about me as a person, not just as the human who fixes her data and reminds her to eat. It's just that, lately, it doesn't seem like that at all. If it's not Thor or whatever she thinks she needs to do to replicate Heimdall's transport system, it doesn't exist to her. I mean, look what happened last night. She came down to the med bay to check on us, then left before she even knew we were okay."

Steve nodded. He had thought was a little odd but Darcy had blocked him from asking anymore about it the night before.

"She didn't even ask how we were when I went up to find the data backups...and she didn't thank me for that either. I mean, I'm fine, aside from the whole mind-reading thing, which we can't really tell her about anyway but it would have been nice to be asked." Darcy made a face. "God, I sound whiny. It's not a big deal, I swear."

Steve placed his hand on her knee under the picnic table. "Darce...no. It _is_ a big deal. After everything you and Dr. Foster have been through, it's natural for you to think that she'd care what happens to you. And I think she does. She just seems to be really lousy at showing it. "But," he continued, squeezing her knee, "this isn't like you to not say anything about it to her either. You stared down Fury today but you're holding all this in?"

Darcy rolled her eyes and gave a shaky laugh. "Please, Fury knows how to sweep into a room dramatically and rock leather but I'm here because Jane told SHIELD that she couldn't work here without me..."

"Which is true." Steve interjected.

"It's only true as long as she believes it! The fact is, I'm a political science major who has somehow managed to become an assistant to the world's leading astrophysicist, the world's leading nuclear chemist and whatever the Hell Tony is this week! There is only so much of a brat I can be before Jane decides to ditch me and hire an actual scientist. And then where does that leave me?"

 _'And where does it leave us?'_ He heard her add in their heads. Steve blinked at her. "Darcy...?"

She exhaled, wide eyed, as if she had surprised herself with the statement. "I actually don't think I planned on saying all that...or thinking it."

"Darcy, listen to me: you may have come here with Dr. Foster but you've more than earned your role here. If she tried to fire you, I doubt that I would be the only Avenger she'd have to deal with."

Darcy leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "You're all kinds of sweet and awesome for saying that, Steve, but I don't think Captain America gets to decide this one. I work for the scientists."

"The scientists agree...well, I know that at least Tony does." Steve insisted. He calmed his mind long enough to bring up the memory of his earlier conversation with Tony. Darcy closed her eyes briefly as she received the memory, as she had with his memories earlier that day.

"He said that? What does that mean?"

"He did...you're much better at deciphering most of what Tony says but I'm guessing it means that he would never let Dr. Foster fire you without putting up a fight."

Darcy sighed and crumpled her sandwich wrapper. "Maybe...but in the meantime, I'd rather not have a blow up with Jane over this. I'm done with explosions for a day or so at least. Yeah, so my feelings are a little hurt but the rest of me is fine...aside from this freaky mind reading thing... and I've got a date with you as soon as we get this sorted. And I got you to go to the Apple store!"

"I seem to remember that you owe me gelato for that."

"You just ate three sandwiches and the rest of mine!"

"So...gelato would make a good dessert."

"Your sweet tooth may be even more disturbing than your metabolism...but I suppose a promise is a promise. We'll take Columbus back and stop in and get you a gelato."

"I believe you promised a double."

"Dear Lord."

Chuckling, he rose to his feet and grasped her hand to pull her to hers. Once she was upright, he could not resist dropping a quick kiss onto her lips. She tasted like strawberry lemonade.

"Hmmm," she said, cocking her head. "Not that I am complaining about the PDA but do we plan on doing that around the Tower? I know we agreed to keep the mind-reading under wraps but what about...this?"

Right. They should probably figure that out before they went to have dinner with all of their really observant teammates and associates. "Uh...what do you want to do?"

Darcy shrugged again. "Normally I would say that we should just tell them, they're our friends after all. Even though we should expect some mocking from Tony. And a bunch of bad sex jokes...."

Steve nodded in agreement. Many, many bad sex jokes.

"But..." Darcy continued, "I'm not sure we can explain this relationship change thing without getting a bunch of questions about how it happened."

"Which would lead to questions about the mind-reading thing. I agree. OK, we can keep this between us for a little while longer."

"But not too much longer?' Darcy asked hopefully.

"Not a second longer than we need to." Steve squeezed her hand with his. "I'll just have to remember to keep my hands to myself when our friends are around."

She shot him a grin that was almost sinful, then darted her sparkling blue eyes left, then right. "I don't see any of them around here. Do you?"

Because he was not an idiot, Steve leaned down and covered those lemonade lips with his. In an instant her hands were on his shoulders, and she was kissing him back enthusiastically. Steve had to remind himself that they were in public and he shouldn't press his body closer to hers as he wanted to. In his mind, though, they were alone in his apartment at the Tower, pressed against his door and each other.

Darcy gave a little whimper of pleasure against his mouth and he knew she was seeing his little daydream in her mind. That was confirmed a second later when his shirt disappeared in their daydream. He responded by causing hers to vanish as well. His dream self was starting to run his hands over her bare back when he felt a quick, dull thunk at the back of his head, as if something light but hard had hit him. He reluctantly broke the kiss and they both looked down. A white round plastic disk lay at their feet.

Darcy used the toe of her sneaker to flip it over. "Seriously?" she huffed. It was a plastic frisbee. A _Captain America_ frisbee: a white disk that was colored on one side like - what else? - his shield.

Before they could say anything else, two kids – a boy and a girl no older than ten and eight respectively - came running up.

"Our Dad says you're Captain America! Is that true?" they shouted breathlessly.

"Uh..." Steve stammered. "Hi there...where is your dad, exactly?"

And older man, who looked vaguely familiar to Steve came jogging up at that point, looking red–faced and not just from the exertion. "Jason! Annamarie! Why did you throw that? I told you not to bother him..."

The man stooped to retrieve to frisbee, shot the two children a warning look, then turned back to Steve and Darcy. "I'm sorry. I mentioned to them that I thought it _might_ be you. I didn't think they'd come over here like that or throw this at you. I apologize."

Steve now realized why the man looked familiar. He was the senior of the two NYPD officers he had commanded during the Battle of New York. They had steered civilians down through the subways at his direction. As the memory played in his head, he darted a glance at Darcy.

She nodded at him. _'Got it. It's OK, go ahead.'_

"It's no problem, officer. It's very good to see you again," he said, extending his hand. "I'm sorry that in all the activity that day that I didn't catch your name."

"Dad says he met you during the Battle of New York but he didn't have any pictures."

 _'How old are these kids? Aren't they a little young for "pics or it didn't happen?""_ Steve received from Darcy.

"You remember?" The officer looked genuinely surprised. Steve glanced down. The kids' eyes had widened as he took their father's hand. "It's Kaminsky. Officer Bill Kaminsky."

"Of course I do." Steve turned to the kids. "Your dad and his partner saved a lot of lives that day. They got all the civilians to safety so Loki and the Chitauri couldn't hurt them."

"Really?" the boy asked.

"Yes, and next time your father tells you something, you should probably believe him." Steve admonished gently, and with a smile.

Both kids squirmed dutifully. Worried that he had laid it on a little too thick, Steve took the frisbee from Officer Kaminsky. "Do you mind if I show Jason and Annamarie some tricks I've learned with my shield? They might want to share them with their friends at school tomorrow?"

Both kids erupted and Kaminsky looked floored. "No, go right ahead. Thank you. Be good, kids. And be sure to say thank you to... Uh... what should they call you?"

"Captain Rogers is fine." He led the kids to a small clearing nearby and began letting the kids take turns tossing frisbee under his direction.

*****

Darcy watched as Officer Kaminsky snapped a few photos with his phone. He shrugged at her sheepishly. "My wife would kill me if I didn't get photos."

Darcy smiled and nodded. She wasn't exactly sure what her role here was. She supposed that if she was going to date Steve Rogers, that meant getting used to being with Captain America when he got recognized in public. Still, it was a little weird.

"He really doesn't have to do this, you know. I didn't expect him to." Officer Kaminsky said, nodding towards Steve and the kids. Steve had run to retrieve the frisbee and was using his superspeed to run back. The kids were chasing him, attempting to keep up, shouting and laughing in delight. The look on Steve's face as he ran, made Darcy's heart flip a bit.

"it's not about what people expect him to do. It's just him." Darcy replied, sure of every word.

She watched Steve's face as he high-fived Jason for a particularly good toss and bit her lip. It was entirely possible that her ovaries had flipped at that look.

As the thought went through her mind (and his), Steve stumbled on air, steadied himself and shot her a deer-in-the-headlights look from the clearing.

 _'Easy, soldier, it's just a joke. we haven't even been on a date yet.'_ she sent reassuringly.

Captain America or not, he was such a guy.

He nodded and returned his attention to the kids, though his face looked a bit flushed. It took Darcy another second to realize that Officer Kaminsky was staring at her now, as if he could will her into filling the silence. Must be a cop thing. Well, if she could handle Nick Fury, she could handle him.

"Your children are beautiful," she told him blandly. It was true, they were cute kids but it was also the safest thing to say to someone who obviously wanted other information.

"Thank you...Miss...?" He trailed off, expecting her to answer.

"Miss is fine. Or Ma'am."

"I didn't realize that Captain America had a....girl..um...woman that he...uh..."

"Steve Rogers." Darcy corrected. " _Captain_ Steve Rogers. He loves his uniform, just as you probably do. But it comes off and he gets to be a regular person too."

Officer Kaminsky nodded in understanding. "Sorry. Didn't mean to pry. But you have to expect that people are pretty curious about him and the rest of the Avengers."

"True, but what's that you guys say? I have a right to remain silent?" Darcy smiled up at him but allowed a bit of an edge to creep into her voice when she added, "I'm not answering any personal questions about him...or myself. Let's just let them enjoy themselves."

Officer Kaminsky blinked at her. "You're tougher than you look."

"You have no idea." Darcy told him, then nodded towards Steve. "Just like him. When he needs to be."

She left it that and let the officer draw his own conclusions. They watched Steve play with the kids for a moment longer and then Officer Kaminsky pulled out his phone again. Instead of taking another shot, he tilted the phone so Darcy could see the screen and scrolled through the photos until he landed on one taken earlier. One of Darcy and Steve kissing.

Darcy's eyes narrowed. NY's Finest indeed. She'd been right to be cautious. With a swipe of his thumb, Officer Kaminsky deleted the photo from his device.

"My wife would have killed me for that too. I thought I could seize the moment. Get a scoop...but that's not me. I'm not that guy. I hope you believe that."

"I hope for your kids sake that you aren't that guy. Thanks for getting rid of that. We can't force you to. We were out in public. No one else would have blamed you. A photo like that could have paid for your family to go to Disney."

"So can overtime and a good savings plan."

Steve brought the kids back from the clearing and handed Officer Kaminsky the frisbee. "Jason, Annamarie, thanks for being good students. Try not to show off too much at school tomorrow."

"Did you get pictures of us, Dad?" Annamarie asked. "I want to show mom that we met Captain America!"

Officer Kaminsky looked warily at Darcy as he answered. "Yeah, kiddo, I got plenty of pictures this time."

Steve eyed the officer with what Darcy knew to be the mildest version of his Captain America Disapproves stare. "Darce, how are the pictures?" he asked.

She knew he had been getting snippets of her conversation as he played with the kids. Just enough to know that something was up.

 _'It's OK, he made it right, I'll explain later.'_ she sent him. "The pictures are great, Steve."

Only then did Steve extend his hand to Officer Kaminsky.

End Chapter.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this. I've had two chapters 90% written for ages but I could not find the time to finish either one so I got stalled on updating.

**Chapter Six**

_**Stark Tower...Later that evening...** _

Family dinners at Stark Tower were very casual affairs: Pepper ordered tons of food and had it set up buffet style in the largest lounge room for everyone to eat at their leisure. Though no one had said it out loud, it was understood that neither Tony's attention span nor superhero metabolisms lent themselves to structured sit-down dinners.

Usually Steve enjoyed both the social aspect and the copious amounts of food at these events. Today, though, perhaps because he was still pretty full from the gelato he had eaten a short time before and because he was distracted by trying to appear normal, he really wasn't feeling enthusiastic about this dinner. He and Darcy had agreed to spend as little time together at the dinner as they could without attracting attention. In a room full of perceptive people, sitting near one another while mind-reading would give them away sooner rather than later.

So Darcy was on the other side of the enormous room, curled up on one of the sofas, chatting with Pepper, while he sat at the big bar, picking at a plate he had filled at the buffet but had little interest in eating. He was trying (and largely failing) to not eavesdrop on the conversation Pepper and Darcy were having. On the surface, it seemed like they were coordinating their shared management of Tony's crazy work and personal schedule (something Steve had long-suspected Darcy had a hand in but now it was confirmed).

From Darcy's thoughts, though, she seemed to think that Pepper was also subtly evaluating her to make sure she was OK after the explosion. it made Steve wonder what their teammates had been saying and thinking about them since the previous night's events. The frustration of keeping so much from their friends was enough to kill what was left of Steve's appetite and he pushed his barely touched plate away and fiddled with the wrapper of the beer Clint had handed him. He wished it actually did something to him.

Thor's deep voice pulled startled him from his thoughts. "Steven! May I join you?" Thor asked, standing behind the bar stool next to him, holding his own plate loaded with food.

"Of course." Steve replied automatically. Then, because Thor's hands were more than full with beer and food, he pushed the stool out for his teammate.

"Thank you. I do dislike eating alone and Jane seems occupied discussing science matters with Stark at the moment." Thor balanced his large frame on the stool and arranged his food and drinks in next to Steve's. He looked curiously at Steve's still-full plate.

"Are you well, friend Steven? I've not known you to show so little interest in the food Stark provides."

Steve shrugged. "Late lunch, I guess. Not really hungry."

"It is not last night's troubles, then?" Thor pressed.

"No...I'm fine."

Darcy and Pepper's shared laughter at some joke – Steve had heard enough to know that it was something involving Tony's wardrobe choice for a recent press conference – drifted over from across the room. Steve could not stop himself from glancing over at the two women. At that moment, Darcy titled her head back in laughter and Steve remembered the mark he had left with his mouth at the base of her throat...which of course brought up the memory of kissing her on the couch in his apartment that afternoon. He blinked to clear the memory before it embarrassed both of them and turned his attention back to his beer.

"I'm not convinced that you are fine, Steven." Thor said after he had swallowed a large bit of his food.

"Why do you say that?"

"I have been trained as a warrior as you. have And we warriors are observant of our companions in and out of battle."

Steve didn't like where this conversation was headed, so there might have been a slight edge to his voice when he asked spoke again. "And, what do you think you have observed about me?"

Thor, thankfully, was not easily offended. "Be at ease, friend. My observation is not meant to offend. I mean to be of aid to you."

"You want to help me? With what?"

Thor glanced over his shoulder at Darcy and Pepper in a way that was so devoid of subtlety or stealth it made Steve wince. "With your interest in my Midgardian sister Darcy, of course."

Steve was grateful he had not been drinking his beer when Thor said that or it would have been all over the counter. "My...interest in Darcy?" he said, his voice low, willing himself not to look over at her again. "Thor, Darcy and I are friends..."

"This I know but you also desire a romantic relationship. That is very clear, friend. You are protective of her and you seek her out above others. And have for some time. I do not think our other friends are aware of this but it has been obvious to me for some weeks now. I had wondered why you were hesitant in making your intentions known to her."

"Thor..." Steve began, not even sure what he was going to say. Nothing Thor had said had actually been wrong... Steve just hadn't been ready for anyone else to say it out loud. What he and Darcy had was still between them.

 _'What are you guys talking about?'_ Darcy sent. Oh boy.

_'Umm, Thor's trying to be helpful? I'm handling it. I'll explain later.'_

_'Okay, but I'm getting some weird stuff over here.'_

Thor shook his head as he speared potatoes with his fork. He continued, not even acknowledging Steve's attempt at interrupting. "...I have concluded that your hesitancy is out of respect for me and our kinship as teammates."

Wait, what?

"My hesitance is what?" Maintaining a loud enough "whisper" over the din of Tony's idea of dinner music was making his throat dry so Steve took a sip of his beer to soothe his throat.

"Out of respect for me. She is my Midgardian sister and you did not wish to offend me by proceeding without my blessing. Be assured, Steven. I know you to be an honorable man and a capable warrior. You have my blessing and my permission."

This time Steve really did spit out his beer and coughed for nearly a full minute trying to clear the foam from his nose.

Thor cheerfully handed him a napkin. "You should drink more carefully, my friend."

Steve waved off the napkin. "Did you just say you I have your permission? Your permission to what?"

"To court Darcy. Jane has chided me that this term is not used on modern Midgard but the meaning is understood."

Steve blinked at him. Asking a girl's father for permission to date her had been falling out of favor when he'd gone into the ice, and it sure as Hell was now.

"No disrespect intended Thor...but it seems to me that women these days really don't like the idea of men speaking for them. If I did want to date Darcy, I think she'd be pretty mad if implied that she couldn’t decide for herself by asking you."

"There is no question that Darcy can decide for herself. The Asgardian idea of a trusted male friend granting blessing and permission is as a show of support to the relationship. I would do the same for any woman I hold in high esteem. Even my fellow warriors. It is a show of faith."

Though Thor sounded sincere, Steve was still doubtful, then a thought occurred to him. "Who did you ask for permission to date...uh, court Dr. Foster?"

"Why, Eric Selvig, of course. Is he not like a beloved uncle to Jane and Darcy? He was very supportive."

And probably terrified of what Thor might do if he said no. "Does Dr. Foster know that?"

Thor paused in his eating. "I assume Selvig told her. We have never actually spoken about it...but I am certain that she knows..." He straightened in his seat. "Perhaps Jane should speak to Darcy on this. If you fear that Darcy may take offense, another woman can explain the intent better than you or I."

That sounded like a absolutely terrible idea to Steve. Not only because he wasn't entirely convinced that Jane even knew about Thor asking Dr. Selvig for permission to date her, he didn't think that right now was the best time to ask Jane... Jane and Darcy had other issues.

 _'Wait, what was that? Thor did what?'_ came Darcy's voice in his head. Oh man, this was bad.

_'I'm trying to figure that out. I promise, I will explain it all to you later.'_

But sending that thought to Darcy distracted him just long enough to miss the fact that Thor had gotten out of his seat and began crossing the room to where Jane and Bruce were seated.

"No, Thor...wait!" Steve whispered but it was too late. Thor was already taking the seat next to Jane.

Even with his enhanced hearing, Steve could not hear everything that was being said over Tony's choice of music. But he could read body language. He watched Thor place his arm around Jane's shoulder. She smiled up at him as soon as he did so.

Tony for his part, narrowed his eyes at Thor and seemed to sense that something interesting was going to happen. He crossed one ankle over another and leaned back to watch to the couple unabashedly.

Steve watched as the smile faded from Jane's face and she shifted out from under Thor's arm and held up her hands. Jane and Thor then started talking at the same time, meaning it was highly unlikely that they were hearing each other. Steve winced when a short break in the music allowed a few of Jane's angry words to float across the room.

"….GET OFF ASKING SOMEONE ELSE'S PERMISSION TO DO ANYTHING WITH ME...!!!"

Oh man, he'd been right.

Tony was watching the entire exchange with undisguised interest, ignoring Pepper's urgent gestures that he step away from the couple.

Jane jumped up from the couch, shouted a few more words in Thor's direction and stomped out of the room. Thor was off the couch like a shot. As Thor passed him on the way to the door, Steve caught the end of his plea to Jane over the music.

"...DON'T UNDERSTAND! YOU ARE INDEED CAPABLE..."

Oh boy.

 _'What the Hell was that?'_ Darcy wanted to know.

_'It's a long story...and, for the record, it's totally not my fault. I tried to stop him.'_

Before Darcy could answer, Steve felt a jab in his shoulder. He looked up and noticed that Tony, Natasha and Clint had joined him at the bar. Clint must have poked him with his beer bottle.

The archer nodded towards the door. "What was that about?"

Steve shrugged. "The music drowned out most of what they were saying," which was technically not lying. Because he could feel all three watching him closely, he willed himself not to look over at Darcy.

Clint looked at Tony. "You were sitting right there. What did you hear?"

Tony shrugged. "Hell if I know. It's Thor... He opens his mouth and the Canterbury Tales comes out. Something about courting her... I dunno, I left my copy of Asguardian Prince Spark Notes in my other jacket."

"That looked bad. Think the God of Thunder is going to need to crash on one of our couches tonight?" Natasha asked, popping the olive from her drink into her mouth.

Clint snorted. "As if our couches would fit Thor. He should crash with Bruce, he has a Hulk-sized bed for emergencies."

Not wanting to add to this conversation, Steve swigged the rest of his beer. He was both relieved and frustrated when Darcy and Pepper joined their group at the bar. It was going to be even harder to not focus on Darcy.

 _'Relax, we can do this.'_ she sent. He sent her a camo elephant in return.

"Well, that was a little awkward." Pepper said, and it took Steve a second to remember that she was referring to Thor and Jane.

"They'll be fine," Natasha waved off. "Those two are like Disney characters. Besides, who can stay mad at Thor for very long?"

"Loki." Tony supplied.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Besides him. C'mon, Darcy, back me up. You know those two better than anyone."

Darcy shook her head. "Pleading the fifth here. Gossiping about my boss and her atmospherically powerful boyfriend isn't likely to end well for me."

"Hey, I'm your boss too," Tony interjected. "And I say gossip makes the world go 'round. Along with money. For example, a little JARVIS told me about the tete e tete your left foot had with Clint's nether regions. How you holding up there, Birdman?"

"I'm fine." Clint ground out. "It wasn't a direct hit."

"I saw the footage, Clint. She nailed...them. Nice aim, padawan." Natasha told her. "Especially without time to telegraph. Not perfect though. He could still walk. We'll work on improving impact next session. You want them down and staying down."

Darcy nodded dutifully at Natasha's praise. "Yes, ma'am."

Steve raised an eyebrow at her.

 _'You think it's a good idea for me to argue with her?'_ Darcy sent.

_'Good point.'_

"I'm standing right here." Clint grumbled.

"Don't take it personally. I taught her to do that to anyone who tries get the drop on her. You were an unfortunate guinea pig."

"I really don't see the point in teaching the intern to maim."

"I'm an lab assistant, not an intern and frankly, I think it is has become clear that anyone who spends this much time with you guys should damn well know how to maim."

Pepper swirled the rest of the wine in her glass and nodded. "At least a little."

Steve smiled at that before remembering that they were missing a team member, aside from Thor. He looked over his shoulder towards the door in hopes that Bruce might appear. Pepper followed his gaze, then turned to Tony.

"The point of having the team dinner tonight was so we could ALL talk to each other," she said pointedly. "Did you invite him?"

Tony shrugged again, this time stone-faced. "JARVIS sent him the message. When he wants to talk, he'll talk."

Natasha and Clint exchanged a look but said nothing. Not for the first time, Steve wondered if they'd been able to read each other's minds all this time and had never told anyone.

 _'Ugh, I don't get paid enough for this crap.'_ Darcy sent as she set her glass down on the bar and sent the remaining Avengers a pointed scowl. "Don't all volunteer at once," she said before stalking towards the door.

_'I suppose we deserved that. Good luck.'_

_'Thanks. And you did.'_

"What does she think she's doing?" Tony grumbled.

Steve raised his eyebrows at Tony. "Her job."

Natasha set her martini down and called out to Darcy. "Hey, padawan, wait up. I'm coming with you."

  
*****

Natasha placed her hand on the scanner and instructed JARVIS to take the elevator to Bruce's floor. For safety reasons, he had most of an entire Tower floor to himself. Once JARVIS had them en route, she turned to Darcy. "So I'm guessing you and Rogers don't have any hard feelings for Bruce about what happened?"

Darcy shrugged one shoulder. "Accidents happen, especially around here. Doesn’t do any of us any good to hold grudges over them. Though I can't speak for Steve."

Natasha hummed. "Not sure about that. You two seem to be on the same page lately."

Darcy was not an idiot. She knew when Natasha was fishing. "I still don't speak for him. Besides, hard feelings or not, Bruce not communicating with us just makes things worse."

Natasha nodded. "Agreed. So have you talked to him since last night? What's the deal?"

"Steve and I talked to him earlier. Seems like guilt. I'm convinced that whenever the universe was handing out the ability to feel guilt, Bruce stood in line twice and Tony skipped it and got a lapdance instead."

The elevator announced their arrival at Bruce's floor. Natasha gestured for Darcy to go ahead. "Being predisposed to guilt doesn't exactly make him unique around here," Natasha observed.

"Yeah, and it's working out gangbusters for rest of you?"

"Touche, Lewis. Touche."

"JARVIS, Can you tell Bruce that Natasha and I want to talk to him?"

"Doing so now. Ms. Lewis."

"Alright, Scientist Whisperer, I suppose you want to lead?"

Darcy wrinkled her nose at Natasha's pointed tone but nodded in reply. "If you don’t mind. I promise, the next time we need to pull someone's spleen out through their nose, you lead on that."

"Deal." Nat replied stoically, leading Darcy to believe that the redhead knew more than one way to do just that.

Bruce opened his door and looked at Darcy, then at Natasha for a long moment, then he sighed. "I don't suppose you could just leave now, tell everyone else you saw me and just say I was fine?"

Darcy and Natasha both stared impassively at him.

"Didn't think so," he said, stepping back so both women could enter his apartment.

Bruce's apartment was large, for the aforementioned reasons. Darcy remembered hearing Tony go on and on about reinforcements to the walls and ceilings that he had designed himself but the details were hazy to her. Aesthetically, though, it was calming space: indirect lighting, plants, textured wall hangings and knick-knacks that looked like he had picked them up on his extensive travels and not say, at the local Target.

Bruce set his glasses down on the coffee table near the Stark tablet and stack of journals he'd obviously been reading before they interrupted him.

"So... Team dinner?" Darcy asked. "You forget the time, the place, the date?

"I had some work to finish up here..." Bruce hedged.

Natasha cocked her head at him.

"And I figured some distance wouldn't be a bad idea," he added with a sigh.

Darcy frowned. All it took for Bruce to fess up was a tilt of Natasha's head. She had to learn how to do that!

"Not a bad idea for whom? Because Steve and I sure didn't tell you to put yourself in Avenger Timeout."

 _'Avenger Timeout?'_ Steve asked through their link.

_'Hush, trying to make a point here.'_

"Not a timeout, just a break. I don't want to argue with anyone. That doesn't always end well for me."

Natasha sighed. "We know Tony tries to push your buttons but we also know you can handle him and so can the Other Guy. He knows the difference between Tony being an ass and a real threat."

"Not an inaccurate assessment but this really isn't about Tony." Bruce told her.

"Then what it is about?" When he didn't answer, Darcy stepped closer and pressed, "Bruce. What's going on?"

"I don't suppose I'm going to get very far trying to dodge both of you..."

"You let us in. That was your last chance at dodging anything," Natasha said, matter of factly.

"Fair point." Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. One of his nervous tells, Darcy knew. "You know, when I agreed to come here, it was always meant to be temporary."

"What?"

"This," Bruce gestured around the apartment, "All of this... I never promised to stay here indefinitely. I told Tony that at the start. I told all of you that." He looked at Natasha. "You remember that, Nat?"

She nodded. "You did, but I thought..."

"You thought I didn't mean it?" There was an edge to his voice that usually wasn't there when he was in this form but Natasha didn't flinch.

"No, I thought that once you saw what we could do, together, as a team. That you'd see the value... even if it meant being close to SHIELD."

"SHIELD and...everything else. I do see the value but that doesn't meant I should stay here forever. That I can _do_ this forever."

Natasha looked irritated. "No one is asking for forever. But there's a big difference between forever and another---"

"Day? Week? Year? 10 years?" Bruce asked. "Am I supposed to watch the rest of you get hurt or die and get replaced around me and just let the Other Guy keep smashing through things? Is that what I'm supposed to do? Is that my job?"

Natasha opened her mouth to respond, then belatedly seemed to realize that she had no reply for that but Darcy spoke up.

"Your job is to help people. To protect each other. And you can do that better than any of the others because the Hulk is---"

"Indestructible?" Bruce finished for her, flatly.

"Yeah," Darcy replied, even though from his tone she realized that it was somehow exactly the wrong thing to say.

"That's the thing, Darcy. Being indestructible isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially if you didn't ask for it. I think...I think it's time that the Avengers start planning to do what they do without the Hulk."

"And Bruce Banner? We should prepare to be without him too?" Natasha asked.

Bruce nodded and sank into the sofa, slipping his glasses back on.

Darcy and Natasha exchanged a look.

"Is your mind already made up?" Darcy asked.

Bruce exhaled. "Honestly, it's not. Because Nat's right. I do see what I can do here. I do. And you are all my friends. Part of me does want to keep doing what we're doing. I just don't see how..." his gaze fell to the tablet in his lap, even though the screen was blank.

Darcy pressed him after a moment. "Don't see what?"

Bruce's gaze flicked over to Natasha before looking at his tablet again. "I don't see how this ends." He swallowed and powered his tablet up. "If you ladies don't mind, I have some work I want to finish tonight. I haven't made any final decisions yet but you should probably tell the others what we talked about so...they know it's a possibility."

Natasha nodded and moved towards the door with Darcy following.

"Uh, Darcy?" Bruce said as they reached the door.

"Yes?"

"You should know that, if I decide to leave, I won't go before I get things in order around here. Fix...some things, finish some projects."

Darcy nodded in understanding, and ignored the curious look Natasha was shooting both of them. He could not say anything more in front of Natasha but that was a message to her and Steve.

"Was that about lab work?" Natasha asked once they were in the hallway again.

Darcy nodded again, biting her lip. "He's a scientist. He doesn't like to leave things undone."

Natasha shook her head. "Seems to me that's exactly what he's doing."

  
*****

**_Stark Tower...Later that night...Darcy Lewis' apartment..._ **

Steve was waiting for Darcy outside her apartment when she returned from visiting Bruce a few minutes later.

"Natasha went upstairs to tell everyone else." Darcy said somewhat needlessly as she opened her door with the scanner. Steve had heard Darcy accept Natasha's offer to be the messenger. Probably because Darcy looked like the events of the past two days had finally caught up with her. She looked positively worn out. He nodded and followed her over to the couch, pulling her into his arms as the settled into the cushions.

 _'I don't know how I didn’t see this coming.'_ she sent, her head resting on his chest. 'How could I have not seen how upset he was?'

 _'You did see it. You were the one who pointed out that he was acting strange before the explosion. No one else did. You were doing your job. You shouldn't beat yourself up because Bruce is really good and keeping things to himself,'_ Steve sent back, trying to reassure her.

_'I guess, but it's more serious than I thought. Do you think he'll leave?'_

"I don't know," Steve said out loud. "Bruce's experience with..the serum has been so different from mine. I can't begin to guess what he thinks he needs to do to deal with it." Not for the first time, Steve replayed some of his own interactions with the doctor, wondering if his own presence here in the Tower made things worse.

Then he felt Darcy's fingers turning his jaw to face her. "You tell me not to beat myself up about it and then you start to do the same thing? Did you forget that I can see what's going on in there?" She tapped his forehead lightly.

"No, I guess I'm just getting used to it." Steve replied, gently pulling her hand from his forehead and intertwining their fingers. He kissed her lips lightly to make his point.

"So now what? What do we do?" Darcy asked, when he pulled back.

"About Bruce? Well, we have a little time, I suppose. He said he wouldn't leave until he fixed out issue so we maybe our strategy should be to make a better argument for him staying."

Darcy looked pensive. "You know from the field that you can't make the Hulk to do something he doesn't want to do. I'm telling you that Dr. Bruce Banner isn't much different."

"We're not going to force him. We're going to make an argument. Dr. Banner is a scientist. He can be persuaded by a rational argument."

  
*****  
_**Stark Tower...Later that night...**_

Darcy woke up suddenly, feeling anxious and not sure quite why. Her heart was racing, she felt warm and sweaty - which was odd because she was dressed only in her sleep tank and shorts - and she could not shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Trying to catch her breath, she calmed her mind and immediately realized the issue.

Steve.

He was having some kind of nightmare. No, not a nightmare...more of a night terror. Darcy could feel it. She was getting glimpses of his dream...enough to know that it was everything that haunted Steve: the ice, dying, losing Bucky, the Chitauri, Red Skull...

"Steve!" she said in her mind and out loud. "Steve, it's OK. It's a dream. It's not real."

The flashes continued in her mind and she threw the sheet back. "JARVIS, Check on Steve for me! Tell me how he is!"

"Captain Rogers is asleep but he appears to be in some distress. His temperature and heart rate are above normal resting rate for his metabolism."

Darcy raced through her apartment, tripping over her shoes and knocking into her doorframe as she went. "I need you to let me into his apartment, JARVIS! I need to help him."

"Miss Lewis, there is no immediate danger to Captain Rogers' health... I'm afraid I can't..."

Darcy was taking the stairs two at a time to the floor above hers, where Steve's apartment was located. "JARVIS, you have to trust me. You need to let me in to see him!"

"Miss Lewis, you are not in the habit of being untrustworthy. Access will be granted. I have also turned on the lights in Captain Rogers' apartment for you."

Less than a minute later, Darcy pushed open the door to Steve's apartment and raced to his room. Thank goodness JARVIS had turned on the lights. She probably would have taken a header over his couch in her haste.

She found Steve on his bed, still in the midst of his night terror, sweaty and flushed, the sheet twisted around his body. He was fighting..something. Arms flailing. From the flashes she was getting in her mind, whatever he was fighting was trying to hurt Bucky...and her? She could see flashes of her own face in his mind. And she didn't look happy. Frankly, she looked terrified. That wasn't a good sign.

Approaching the bed slowly to be clear of his massive arms, Darcy tried to decide what to do. She'd read somewhere that you should wake someone up suddenly from a night terror, it could make things worse...but she couldn’t leave him like this. Maybe if she tried to calm him down slowly, while he was still asleep... Shifting towards the head of the bed to stay clear of his arms, Darcy slid her body towards his until his head was almost resting on her lap. He was still restless and he kept shifting back and forth on the pillow so she gently pressed one palm against his check, ghosting the other over his sweat-damped hair.

Closing her eyes, Darcy tried of clear away all her other thoughts so if he did get something from her in his terror, it would be somewhat calm.

_'It's OK, Steve. It's a dream. I'm alright. I promise. I'm OK. I'm not scared. You shouldn’t be scared either.'_

It was really tempting to wake him up but she didn't want to make things worse. So she kept stroking his hair, repeating her words and holding him until he started to calm. When that seemed to be working, she tried picturing their current position in her head so that he might see it and realize that everything was OK. Darcy really didn’t know if that would work either but it was worth a shot. She wasn't quite sure how long she sat there – she could not see Steve's alarm clock from this angle – but Steve calmed over time and appeared to fall back into a more restful sleep.

But now there was the question of what she should do. Should she leave? Could she get up without waking him?

She shifted his head carefully from her lap and he groaned.

She froze. Guess not.

 _'Darcy?'_ she heard in her head.

_'Yeah, I'm here. Are you awake?'_

_'Am I? I'm not sure.'_   He opened his eyes and looked at her, then down at himself and around the room. _'Are you here, in my room?'_

_'Yes...uh... You were dreaming....before. A night terror actually. But you're awake now and you're fine. I promise.'_

"Night terror?" Steve said out loud, attempting to sit up. Darcy shifted back to give him space to do so. He rubbed his hand down the front of his sweat-dampened t-shirt. "How did you ---" He stopped. "You saw it too?"

Darcy nodded sheepishly. "Bits and pieces. Enough to know you were upset. Um...JARVIS let me in."

Steve stared at her. "You talked to me...while I was dreaming... I heard you. You told me you weren't scared. That I shouldn't be either."

"Yeah... I hoped you would hear me. Took a shot."

Steve leaned forward and gently took her face between his palms. "More than a shot, I think." He kissed her forehead. She relaxed and kissed his cheeks.

_'How are you feeling now?'_

_'Calm. Calmer than I usually am after one of those.'_

_'Do you have them a lot?'_

_'Couple of times a month.'_ he tried to shrug them off. _'Sometimes after a mission if something reminds me...'_ He trailed off but she got the point. _'You didn't have to come up here. It would have ended on its own. They always do.'_

 _'Stop talking nonsense,'_ she retorted. _'Come on, you're all sweaty. Let's get you cleaned up.'_ she rose and pulled on his arm indicating that he should stand. She really had no hope of pulling him to his feet with her own strength but he took the hint and followed her.

JARVIS turned on the lights in the bathroom for them so Darcy grabbed a towel off the rack and ran it under some water.

"I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry. You shouldn't have ---"

"Thought I told you to stop talking nonsense. Now take off your shirt."

Blinking, Steve reached back and yanked off the damp shirt. "Not exactly how I pictured doing this in front of you for the first time."

"You should know well enough that I've actually pictured it lots of ways, just not this one." An image flashed in both their heads of both of them shirtless, pressed up against each other, back in his bedroom. It felt so real that Darcy could almost feel his skin under her fingers. That was when she looked down and realized that she did have her hand pressed against his bare skin, just above his waist. Oh. Well, then.

She stepped back and blinked. Clearing both their heads with a flash of purple camo giraffe. This was really not the time for this. She handed him the towel.

"Here, I'll let you finish." she muttered before ducking out of the bathroom. _'Where's your hamper?'_

 _'Closet.'_ he sent.

She slid open one of the doors of his closet and wasn't surprised to find it meticulously organized, with his uniforms, shirts, pants, and jackets lined up perfectly, evenly spaced on the rods. She dropped his used t-shirt into the hamper basket on one side. _'Remind me to organize my closet before I ever let you look in there.'_

_'Doubt that should be an issue. You're clothes aren't really interesting to me unless you're in them.'_

_'Sweet talker.'_

_'It's the truth.'_

Darcy stopped into his kitchenette to grab him a glass of water. When she returned to the bedroom, he was just about done cleaning up so she took a random guess at his bureau drawers and found the one containing his clean t-shirts on the first try.

"Heads up, soldier," she said and tossed a clean shirt to where he stood in the bathroom door, wearing just his pajama pants. He caught it easily and pulled it over his head. Darcy frowned. No dice, even covered up, Sleepy Steve was distracting as Hell.

_'Sleepy Steve?'_

"Hush!" she admonished, cheeks flushing. "Here, drink this so you can go back to sleep."

Steve took the glass and did as he was told, while he asked in their minds _'Back to sleep?'_

Darcy was straightening his sheets. _'Yes, sleep. It's almost two in the morning. Even super soldiers can't save the universe without sleep.'_ She paused and looked at him. He looked rather...tense. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep?"

"Not sure." He set his empty glass on the nightstand and took a deep breath. "Will you stay?"

"Stay?"

"Just to sleep. I meant. I...I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You've done so much already. I'm really sorry I woke you."

"Stop it. Will it help if I stay?"

"Are you asking me if I'd prefer that you're with me or not? Because you should know the answer to that by now. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable."

Even as he spoke, Darcy saw his eyes flick briefly down her body and she remembered that she was only wearing shorts and a tank.

"Is this where you promise to be a gentleman?"

"I promise to be as much of a gentleman as you want me to be." The look he gave her was pure Steve Rogers mischief. Which she could never resist.

"I'll stay." Darcy said.

After a bit of silent negotiation, they settled into position on Steve's bed, which despite being larger than average, became a lot smaller when occupied by Steve. He slanted his large body and helped her settle into the space he created while keeping a few inches of space between their bodies.

As JARVIS dimmed the lights, Darcy reached back and grabbed Steve's hand, intertwining their fingers and bringing his hand around to rest at her waist.

 _'No more bad dreams, tonight.'_ Darcy sent as she began to drift off.

_'No more bad dreams.'_

  
End Chapter.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

_Stark Tower...the following morning..._

Steve wasn't sure who started it but that didn't matter anymore. Darcy was in his bed, in his arms, laying halfway underneath him as he explored her skin with his mouth, moving largely on instinct because the room was still dark.

Tugging the neckline of her top down so he could kiss between her breasts until she whimpered, then back up across her collarbone, up the side of her neck, pausing briefly to nip at her pulse with a gentle scrape of his teeth. That earned him a breathy moan that he felt rather than heard.

She pulled at his shoulders until his mouth was fitted against hers. He kissed her until the need for air had him panting against her mouth as if he'd just run all the way to Brooklyn and back.

"Steve...don't stop...." he heard her say as she raked her nails through his hair and he groaned because it always felt so damned good when she did that. In an instant his mouth was on hers again, hot and ravenous.

To this point, Steve had been holding his body braced above hers because...well, he really could not remember why. He just thought he should. But as he felt her fingers sliding through his hair and her mouth on his neck, he gave up that hazy resolve and gave into the desire to press her body into the mattress with his own. Darcy shifted as he did, making room for his hips between her thighs. Steve squeezed his eyes shut at the friction against his erection. Darcy whimpered again beneath him and he forced himself to be still.

"Darce?"

She responded by rolling her hips against his again more purposefully. Steve growled at the feeling and closed his eyes again. It felt so damned good but she really needed to stop that or he was going to lose all control. And by the way Darcy's nails were digging into his shoulders through his shirt...

He opened his eyes and gasped. It was no longer dark in the room. Light was streaming in around the edges of his dark curtains. His. This was his room. Darcy was in his bed... because of his nightmare the night before. Not to...

 _'Shit.'_ Steve immediately shifted his weight off of her, his face warming at the friction that even moving away from her caused.

Eyes still closed, Darcy tried to pull him back to her. "Steve."

She was dreaming. They had been dreaming. Christ, he'd almost...

"Darcy...honey, wake up, you're dreaming...we were dreaming..." he shook her shoulder gently. Darcy shifted, moaned and stretched, straining the front of her tank in a way that made Steve flush even more knowing where his mouth had been only minutes before.

Darcy blinked at the bright light, then she seemed to realize what had happened. _'Oh shit... were we...?'_

 _'Dreaming?'_ Steve replied.

 _'That's one word for it.'_ Darcy leaned up on her elbows and exhaled.

Seemed like he wasn't the only one who was left at little breathless from their dream.

_'That super soldier breathing thing you have...tends to leave a girl a bit winded.'_

_'Sorry.'_ Steve rolled onto his back and stared unseeing up at the ceiling. "I'm really sorry," he added out loud.

"You'd better be apologizing for the breathing thing and nothing else," Darcy warned.

"Darcy. I--" Steve stopped because he wasn't sure what he was going to say.

Darcy rolled onto her side to face him and propped her head up on her hand. "Because it seems to me that that was a shared dream, meaning shared responsibility. Meaning one of us shouldn't need to apologize, even though one of us has an overactive – though completely understandable - notion of chivalry that the feminist in the other of us is trying and failing to not find adorable and sort of hot."

Steve blinked at her, trying to make sense of her statement. When he caught up, he smiled. "Adorable and hot?"

"Sort of hot," Darcy corrected. "Relax. I'm not mad. Or outraged. I'm a 21st century girl...but I'm a 21st century who's in your bed at-" She craned her neck to see his clock, "-6:05 in the morning. Are you complaining?"

"Not at all." Steve leaned over and gave her what was supposed to be a quick kiss before they got out of his bed to start the day. Except the very vivid memory of their earlier kisses and the fact that his hand landed on bare skin on her back when he pulled her closer allowed his body's intentions to win out over his mind's.

Darcy wound her arms arm his neck and eagerly opened her mouth to his to deepen the kiss. Their dream memories flooded their minds and no amount of camouflage or zoo animals could stop them. The feel of her body underneath his was strong in Steve's memory and he wanted – needed to feel it again. God, he needed it so much, it hurt.

 _'I second that. This is torture...'_   Darcy sent him between kisses.

"We should stop," Steve said, though with a complete lack of his regular assuredness or authority. Then he undermined his argument further by kissing her again.

"Or...we could not stop?" Darcy suggested, when they broke apart, biting her lip as she met his gaze.

"Not stop?" Steve's throat went dry as soon as the words were out so he ended up having to rely on their link to clarify what she meant. Even then, his thoughts were halting. _'Do you mean...um...finishing what we were doing?'_

_'Well, not finishing finishing, I meant you know...finishing each other off with our hands or whatever... Because you're hurting and I'm all kinds of aching right now and we're both here and we...trust each other, right?'_

"Of course I trust you. But are you sure? Because I really need you to be sure, honey."

"I'm sure I want to make you feel good."

_'Lord, what is a man supposed to say in response to that?'_

_'Nothing, silly, you're supposed to kiss me.'_

She didn’t actually wait for him to do so, instead she buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him down until their mouths met again. Steve kissed her hungrily for a moment before pushing his hands up under her tank top to run them over her silky bare skin. The feel of her gave him a flash of inspiration and after picturing it in his mind for a few seconds, he decided to make it real. He rolled onto his back, holding her in place against him so she ended up on top of him. He may have done it a tad too quickly because she landed with a squeak, with one arm planted on either side of his head and her bare thighs straddling his hips. Not that he was complaining.

 _'I can see you better this way.'_  he explained in their heads, shifting his own body up so he was sitting up against the pillows and the headboard and Darcy was in his lap.

 _'Really? What exactly is it that you think you want to see?'_ she teased.

"Just the most beautiful woman I've ever met," he replied out loud, running his hands from her hips, up her sides stopping at her rib cage. it was the 100% truth as fair as he was concerned. In the faint light of his room, the skin of her bare arms glowed, her perfect oval-shaped faced framed by the soft, wild fall of her hair. The shadows dipped around her frame enhancing the sweeps and curves.

"You say the sweetest things when you want to round second base," she replied, covering his hands with hers and pulling them up over her breasts. One or maybe even both of them let out a groan at the contact. Steve could not be sure but he was sure that stopped caring as the way she arched her back to push into his hands pressed her hips down against his. He tensed under her, trying to stop himself from pressing up too much.

"No...don't hold back. Want to feel you.." she whispered, tightening her thighs around his hips.

Steve gripped her hips to hold her still. "I know, I want it too, I just need to slow down a bit."

Darcy nodded and gazed down at him through lowered lashes. "Not too slow, though."

 _'Not with you looking at me like that.'_ Steve sent because his mouth was occupied with her neck again.

Darcy gripped his head with one hand and his bicep with the other as she rocked in his lap. _'Hey, careful there..don't need anymore hickeys.'_

 _'Then stop being so irresistible,'_ Steve sent, nipping at the hollow of her neck. He let his teeth scrape at her skin gently to make his point. She responded by pressing down against him harder and rotating her hips again. The friction was exquisite for him but he worried that it wasn't enough for her. _'Tell me what you need...'_

_'Touch me...I need your fingers too...'_

Steve nodded against her neck and dropped his hand to her thigh and let his fingers trail upward until the found the leg opening to her thin shorts.. After a few seconds of gentle searching, he found her slick center and slipped one finger inside. She gave a little sound that was somewhere between a moan and a whimper. Lips still pressed against her neck, he shifted his hand so that his thumb was pressed against her clit, circling the tight bundle once as he did. He felt her mouth drop open against his cheek but no sound came from her throat. Steve decided he was greedy for more of her sounds so he added a second finger to her tight channel. This time the sound she made was a high-pitched whine and Steve froze, fearing he'd hurt her. "OK?"

Darcy nodded quickly. _'Yeah...it's good, don't stop...'_ she sent, edging closer to him in his lap and took his bottom lip between hers and tugged until he kissed her properly.

As they kissed, he pushed himself up into her and found a rhythm with his hips and his fingers. Darcy reached down, grasped his free hand and brought it up to cover her breast. Steve took the hint and pushed up her tank to reach bare skin. He teased her for a minute with light touches before taking her nipple between his fingers. She shivered against him, breaking their kiss to catch her breath. Fingers still pumping between her legs, Steve increased his pace, while hoping he could hold off the pressure building at the base of his spine long enough for her.

 _'Steve, I'm close...'_ she sent.

Steve knew this was true. She was starting to tighten and flutter around his fingers. The thought of feeling her doing that when he was truly buried inside her almost made him lose it. He pulled back from her a bit so he could watch her.

_'Darcy, sweetheart... let go...'_

He bent his fingers and stroked her inner walls and she shattered in his arms, throwing her head back, her mouth open in a low cry. He kept stroking her through her orgasm until his own overtook him. He jerked hard against her let his head drop to her shoulder as the shocks coursed through him. Darcy was running her hands over his back as he came back down to earth.

She kissed him lightly when he raised his head. _'Well, safe to say I'm not hurting anymore,'_ she sent him.

 _'Oh yeah? Not hurting? That the best you can do?'_ She nuzzled his neck. _'I feel amazing. You?'_

_'Amazing is the right word. Not sure how I'm supposed to think about anything else now that I've felt you like this. There's only so much you can do with purple camo zoo animals.'_

_'This is some pretty weird pillow talk,' Darcy observed, spearing her fingers through his hair._

_'But considering it's happening only in our heads, it’s appropriate, I think.'_

_Darcy let out a satisfied sigh. 'That was a really nice way to wake up.'_

_'Better than coffee?'_

_'Depends, do you have coffee?'_

They laughed and kissed for a few minutes before Steve had to concede that his damp boxers and pants were getting uncomfortable and he really needed to get cleaned up. Darcy read his thoughts and pouted slightly before climbing off of him.

They took turns in the bathroom getting cleaned up. After changing his pants, Steve found Darcy a toothbrush and comb and left one of his sweatshirts on the bed in case she got cold. Darcy was still sending him thoughts about coffee so he started a pot for her. The caffeine didn't affect him but the flavor was comforting and familiar to him so he drank at least one cup a day. Which was probably only a fraction of what Darcy drank.

 _'Ha ha,'_ she sent, walking into the room.

 _'It's the truth,'_ he said looking up from the coffeemaker. _'You always seem to have coffee in your hand when I see you.'_

_"It's not always mine!'_

She was wearing his hoodie over her tank and shorts. She had mostly succeeded in taming her hair. Her skin, however, was more flushed than usual and since she had not zipped the hoodie, he could see that he had in fact left at least one new mark on her with his mouth.

_'Ooops.'_

Darcy rubbed at one of the marks. _'Saw it in the mirror. And stop pretending you're sorry. We've established that you're not.'_

Steve set down their coffee mugs and gathered her into his arms. She came enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around his waist in a way that he was fast becoming addicted to. "Are you OK?" he asked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" She balanced her chin on his chest so she could peer up at him.

Steve momentarily lost his train of thought at the feel of her chest pressed against his again. "I was..uh...worried that..."

"Worried about what?" she pressed, with a smile.

Minx. She had to know his thoughts were scattered and she could probably figure out why. "That you'd regret this morning. We're skipping a few steps here. We did just agree yesterday to hold off on a first date...and now..."

"I have absolutely no regrets about this morning, Steve. I've pretty much accepted that being in each other's heads means this isn't going to be a typical relationship timeline. I'm cool with that. Are you?"

"God, of course I am. I...just don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"Believe me, you did not do that. You made me feel really good and I hope I did the same for you?"

"Oh you did. So good, I can hardly think straight." He leaned down to kiss her lightly, for his own sake because the memories from this morning were still very strong.

"And just think," she said when they parted. "How much better it's going to be with more practice and fewer clothes."

Steve groaned against her cheek. 'You're trying to kill me.'

_'I am not but I do love to tease you. Just think of all the ways I can come up with to do that.'_

So he did. And came up with a few right off the top of his head. So to speak.

Darcy raised her eyebrows at him. "Niiiiice. I like those."

Steve blinked at what his own mind had conjured up. _'Power of suggestion. That's your influence.'_ Reluctantly he let go of her and gently put some space between their bodies. "Here, have some coffee before you corrupt us both any further."

Darcy frowned at the small 4-cup machine. "Uh, maybe next time we have a slumber party like this, we’ll stay at my place?"

"Why is that?"

"My coffeemaker is bigger," she said matter of factly, taking the mug from him.

Steve snorted. "So size does matter?"

"In this case, it does. But I should stress the coffee maker is the only thing around here that lacking in the size department." She stretched up on her toes and gave him a loud kiss on his cheek.

Placing his hand at her lower back to hold her in place, Steve turned his head to kiss her on her lips. "Tell you what, how about I just get a bigger coffee maker because I'm pretty sure my bed is bigger than yours." He sent her a quick memory of the two of them rolling over in his bed that morning. His bed was indeed custom built, larger than whatever she had in her apartment. And if this morning was any indication, they would need the space.

"Deal." Darcy said and kissed him a final time before padding off to his fridge to get milk.

"What do you need to do today?" he asked, as he set up another pot of coffee to brew, just in case. He could certainly get used to this domesticity. As soon as the thought went through his head, he winced, hoping he would not scare her. Relief flooded his chest when she only smiled in response.

"Check in on the labs. Make sure Jane hasn't made a mess of the data again. Make sure Tony annotated all his changes to the Mark XII. Typical care and feeding of geniuses stuff. You?"

Steve looked at the clock on the stove. "I'm supposed to meet Thor in the gym in an hour but. after what happened last night, I'm not sure. He and Dr. Foster might still be dealing with that."

"Oh they'll be fine. I hate to admit it but Nat's right. There are so Disney. They can never stay mad at each other for very lo--"

JARVIS' ping cut off her statement. "Apologies for the interruption, Captain Rogers but Dr. Banner is at your door. He wishes to speak with you."

Darcy's eyes went wide. "Uh...do you want to me to go? Or stay in the bedroom?"

"Go? Why would you do that?"

"I mean, it's going to look like I spent the night here."

"You did spend the night here. Look, Bruce already knows about the mind-reading thing. That leaves no reason he can't know about this. Please. I don't want you to hide in the bedroom."

"OK, if you're sure."

Steve leaned down to kiss her. "I'm sure."

"Captain Rogers---" JARVIS pressed.

"I'm going, JARVIS."

Bruce was had his medical bag in one hand and was fiddling with his glasses with the other when Steve opened to the door. Steve gestured for him to enter.

"Sorry, to come by so early but JARVIS said you were awake. I need another blood samp--" Bruce's voice trailed off when he spotted Darcy standing in the kitchen doorway sipping her coffee.

Steve took in her appearance as Bruce must be doing at that moment. Still tousled hair, flushed cheeks. The oversized hoodie that was clearly not hers pulled over her sleep tank and shorts. Bare legs and bare feet. Looking exactly like she had spent the night with him.

"Hey, Doc."

Bruce's face reddened. "Hey, Darcy. I'm sorry, guys. Cap, I asked JARVIS if you were awake. I didn't think to ask if you were...alone."

"It's fine, Bruce. We were awake."

Bruce eyes flickered between the two of them. "Is this...new?"

 _'Do you mind if I explain?'_ Steve sent Darcy.

_'Fine with me.'_

"I think we've been on the way to this for a while, everything that happened over the last few days may have moved up the timeline. Like the mind-reading, we actually haven't mentioned this to the others. We plan to...soon."

Darcy nodded and added, "We're just hoping not to have to explain the mind-reading thing too so if we can get that fixed sooner rather than later..."

Bruce nodded."Believe me, Darcy, fixing the 'mind reading thing' is my top priority right now. It's why I'm here. I was hoping to a blood sample from Cap and you, of course. I thought I would see you in the lab later but I can take it now, since you're here."

"Why do you need a blood sample? I thought you had our test results?" Steve asked.

"Your results are just data from that point in time. It doesn't tell me anything about how your bodies are metabolizing the substances in your bloodstream, if levels are changing. I need to start comparing and tracking you both over time if I'm going to get a better idea of how to fix this. I would expect that SHIELD's doctors is going to ask you for more samples soon too. Probably later today."

Darcy groaned and looked at Steve. _'Great. human pin-cushion time.'_

Bruce was pulling gloves and opening his bag. "Which one of you wants to go first?"

Darcy nodded at Steve from behind her mug. _'You first, soldier. Let a girl finish her coffee.'_

"Looks like it's me." Steve said, pushing up the sleeve on his shirt. He seated himself across from Bruce and extended his arm. Bruce made quick work of sterilizing the area and setting up the syringes.

Darcy sipped her coffee and sat on the arm of his chair to watch. Bruce glanced between them as he worked.

"Any of the others notice this mind-reading thing yet?"

Steve shook his head and wrinkled his nose slightly as Bruce's needle found its mark. "We've been lucky. We've gotten a few odd looks and questions but no one's pieced it together. I'm pretty surprised. We're not that great at being subtle, apparently."

Bruce nodded. "No, you're really not."

Darcy shrugged, "What can I say? I'm not really programmed for stealth. Might be why I drive Coulson and Fury nuts."

"Might be one of several reasons you drive Coulson and Fury nuts." Steve corrected.

Bruce smiled slightly as he applied a Hawkeye bandage to Steve's arm. "Your turn, Darcy."

Steve vacated his seat for her, dropping a kiss on her forehead. _'I'll get you a refill.'_ Then he added outloud, "Doc, you want coffee?"

*****

Bruce declined the coffee, as Darcy knew he would. While Tony and Jane needed it to stand upright, let alone do Science!, she'd never seen Bruce touch caffeine or alcohol. She suspected it had something to do with "The Other Guy" but she'd never asked him to spell it out. She pushed up the sleeve of Steve's sweatshirt and extended her arm to Bruce.

"Sorry again about barging in on you guys this morning. If I had known you were here..." Bruce said quietly as he sterilized the spot on her inner forearm.

"Don't worry about it. How are you doing?" Darcy considered it a victory that Bruce didn't immediately claim to be fine our otherwise shut her down. Instead he focused on setting up a clean syringe for her and prepping her vials.

So she prompted a little more. "Last night, right before Natasha and I left, you said being indestructible wasn't all it's cracked up to be. Care to elaborate?"

"Darcy--" Bruce started, with an edge of warning in his voice, then he shook his head and sighed. "It's just...complicated. And I'm not sure I've got it sorted in my head right now."

Darcy waited until he'd patched her up with an Iron Man band-ad before speaking again. Steve sent her that he was staying in the kitchen to give her a chance to talk to Bruce so she didn’t worry about him interrupting them.

"If you do get it sorted...or want someone one to help you get it that way, I'm here. You know that, right? I'm not just good for fetching coffee and compiling data. I'm a pretty good listener."

"Of course I know that," Bruce pulled off his gloves. "Though, you've already got one Avenger sharing brain space with you. You don't need to add me to the mix."

Darcy rolled her eyes. "So just talking then. Open ended offer. Think about it."

"OK."

"Promise?" Darcy pressed.

"It's counterproductive to lie to you. You'll just keep at me. Just...give me a little time, OK?"

Darcy gave him a bright smile and for the first time since the explosion, felt a glimmer of optimism about her friendship with Bruce.

 _'Things going better, I take it?'_ Steve sent.

 _'Progress. You can come out now.'_ she replied.

Steve reappeared with a fresh cup of coffee for her and a glass of water for Bruce.

Bruce gave Steve a wry look as he took the water. "Interesting timing you have, Cap." Steve shrugged. "So, from that little demonstration, I should assume that there's been no change in the mind reading situation. You still have access to each other's conscious thoughts and memories?"

Steve and Darcy exchanged a look. "No change," Steve confirmed. "And, apparently, not just conscious thoughts. I, uh...had a nightmare last night and Darcy saw it."

"Really?" Bruce turned his attention to Darcy. "How did that work? What did you see?"

"It was snippets at first, then when I realized what it was, I was able to focus and see it as well...as well as any of my own dreams."

To Steve, she added _'I think we can skip telling him about our other shared dream from this morning.'_

 _'I agree. He's already gotten to see you in your pajamas. That's more than enough information.'_ Darcy rolled her eyes at him.

Bruce did not acknowledge or appear to notice their silent exchange, he was jotting down their latest information in a small notebook.

"Did you not notice this the first night after --?"

His query was cut off by a buzzing sound from Steve's pocket. Before Steve could fish his phone out, Bruce's phone emitted a similar sound.

Darcy froze. You did not live in Stark Tower for very long without knowing that when more than one of the Avengers' phones rang at once, it was not a good thing. It was the opposite of a good thing. She could feel her chest growing heavier as she watched Steve read the screen of his phone.

Through their link she got all she needed: Armed militants. Standoff. Western Pennsylvania. National Guard needs assistance. She felt Steve's free hand wrap around hers and squeeze and the weight in her chest lighten just a little.

_'Do what you have to do. It's OK.'_

Steve nodded at her. There was nothing to say. Their luck had run out. They were going to need to make this work. Darcy nodded at Bruce before retreating the bedroom.

"Keep moving. Keep going." she said out loud. Doing anything else wasn't an option. He had to go. And she had to help him.

With her resolve re-established, Darcy pulled open the doors of his closet and reached for his suit. Through their link, she was getting parts of his conversation with Bruce.

"Steve...don't go. Just tell the others that you have to sit this one out."

"You know I can't do that."

"I realize that if it were just about you... but it's not."

Darcy laid his suit on the bed, turned then eyed his shield where it rested on it's rack on the wall.

"What is she asked you to stay? Just this once?" Darcy lifted the shield off the wall, pausing to get used its weight before she turned to lay it on the bed, next to the suit.

"Bruce, I can honestly tell you that the thought of asking me to do that never crossed her mind."

Darcy exhaled. A minute later she heard the door close, presumably Bruce leaving to get ready and then Steve sending a voice message to his teammates. "Avengers Assemble. On the Roof in 20. Wheels up in 30."

He still had his phone in his hand when he entered the bedroom and spotted Darcy and what she was doing. "Darcy..."

"You don't have a lot of time. Let's just get you ready."

She helped him pull off his shirt. Though there was a sense of déjà vu, the mood could not have been more different than the night before.

 _'It's going to be OK.'_ she sent as she helped him dress. _'I'm going to work, I'll keep super busy and try not to distract you. Just do what you have to do.'_

 _'I can try to avoid--'_ he started but she cut off his thoughts before he could finish them.

_'No, don't do anything differently. Don't hold back or stop yourself from doing anything you would normally do in a fight. Stay focused. I told you, I can handle it. Promise me you'll treat this like any other mission.'_

_'I promise. Business as usual.'_ Steve fastened the last of the snaps on his stealth uniform and adjusted the collar. _'OK. It's not going to be easy. I'm going to be worried about you. Can't think of a way not to be.'_

 _'Ditto. You just go do your job. I'll do mine. we'll get through it.'_ She smoothed her hand down the front of his jacket, letting her fingers trail over the stitches on the star at the center of his chest. Her words were confident but the heaviness in her own chest was growing again and she'd never had anything resembling a poker face. Even without being able to read her mind, he had to know how she felt. Just as she knew how he felt.

She tried to hand him his gloves, but he pulled into his arms instead and tipped back her head so he could kiss her. Darcy dropped his gloves so she could hold his face in her hands and kiss him back. The kiss was different from all their previous embraces, from their first exploratory kisses on his sofa to their kisses in his bed that morning. This kiss felt like...he was trying to memorize everything about her. And she was doing the same for him. He seemed to sense when air was becoming and issue for her so he trailed his lips to her cheek, then her jaw and ran his hands through her hair, smoothing it between his fingers.

"Go." she told him out loud. "You have to go."

Steve nodded and kissed her lips one more time before pulling away to strap his shield to his back and pick up the gloves she had dropped. He grabbed her hand once more and pressed a kiss to her palm. "I don't know how long..."

"I'll be here when you get back. Now go be a star-spangled badass. They need you." And before she knew it, he was gone. And Darcy was left standing in Steve Rogers' bedroom feeling like there was a hole in her chest and trying to figure out how so much in her life had changed in less than 36 hours.

*****

_Quinjet...short time later..._

Steve scanned the tablet screen again, checking for any change in their intel. The team was still over Eastern PA, according to Clint, but with the Quinjet's speed, they should be over their destination shortly. They'd already worked out a basic strategy, one they would finalize once they could rendezvous with the Guard leadership and get eyes on the actual landscape, not just maps and schematics.

Thor seated himself in the hair next to his and Steve looked up from his tablet. "Thor," he said. "Is everything OK?"

"I was going to ask you the same, my friend. You have not looked up from that device in many minutes. Your plan is a sound one. We will be no less prepared if you allow yourself a moment to be at ease."

Steve laid down the tablet. Thor was probably right. He was more wound up than usual before a mission. And he had promised Darcy that he wouldn't behave differently. From their link he knew that she was working on data, judging by the rows and rows of numbers in his head. She was keeping her end of the bargain.

"You're right. I'm just a little wound up today. Uh..did you and Doctor Foster work everything out last night?"

Thor smiled. "We did. Jane and I came to the conclusion that I was at fault. So perhaps I am not we suited to giving you instruction on courting Darcy as my own house was not in order."

"Maybe not." Steve agreed, giving nothing away. Thor didn't need to know that Darcy had spent the night in his apartment.

Thor titled his head. "I have noticed that you are no longer arguing with me about your interest in Darcy."

"No, I'm not...but I'd really like for Darcy and I to work this out for ourselves."

Thor nodded, looking slightly disappointed and Steve felt terrible. Thor only wanted to help. He thought the world of Darcy and loved her like a sister. The fact that he felt Steve was a worthy match for her said quite a bit.

"There is something you can do for me, though," Steve added after a flash of inspiration.

"Yes?" Thor leaned forward, his eagerness clear. "Darcy's had a rough couple of days. Do you think you can send a message to Dr. Foster asking to check in on her?"

"Of course, although I am sure Jane would do that in any case. We hardly need to make a request."

Steve wasn't so sure. "Just ask. I would appreciate it."

Thor reached for his Stark phone and began typing out a message.

 _'Is everything OK? I heard my name,'_ Darcy sent.

_'It's fine. Thor's just trying to be helpful.'_

_'Are you almost there?'_

_'Almost. Few minutes out.'_

_'Be careful. And remember what you promised me.'_

"ETA 15 minutes." Clint said from the front of the jet.

_'I will."_

**End Chapter**


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